Ecky Henne passed away peacefully in his sleep on February 10, 2017.

He will be missed by all, including his real family and his adopted family of the Pharmacy at Monroe Community Hospital.

Ecky did what he loved best until the last day. On Tuesday, as he was finishing his rounds for the Pharmacy, a nurse noticed he wasn't looking well. They did a quick checkup and sent him to the hospital. He rallied long enough to communicate his wishes to the doctors, then went to sleep, never to wake again.

It was quick and peaceful. May we all have his good fortune of a full life up to the end - many, many years from now.

In accordance with his wishes, there will be no ceremony or visitation. He will be interred with his wife Betty at the Maplewood Cemetery in Rochester, NY.

Eckart Gerd Ulrich Henne was born in Montreal, Canada on March 21, 1953, to Reinhard and Hannelore Henne, immigrants from Germany. There were complications at birth, which left damage to his motor systems but not his intellect (Cerebral Palsy). The family lived there until 1956, when they moved to Rochester, New York. Ecky grew up with his brothers George and Brian. For schooling, he had a private teacher that came to the house. After the move to MCH, Ecky spent most weekends at home until Fall of 1977, when his father took a new job in Virginia.

When he was 16, he became a resident at Monroe Community Hospital, where he lived for 47 years, the longest of anyone there. Known by everyone, he appeared on the cover of the annual report and the website. They even named the hallway he'd always roll down "Ecky's Alley".

He was a great sports fan. He went to many Rochester Red Wings and Amerks games. He got to see a World Series game, as well as pro Basketball, Soccer and Hockey. When the Stanley Cup visited MCH, guess who was in the picture?

Ecky was a passionate music fan. His favorite was Taylor Swift (replacing Shania Twain). His room, and the Pharmacy, was covered in Taylor Swift memorabilia. Ecky was thrilled to go to a real Taylor Swift concert with his brothers. The ushers were definitely amused by the three middle aged men attending the concert.

In 1985, Ecky married Betty, also a long term resident of MCH. They were happily married for 28 years, until she passed away in 2013. They brought much joy and comfort into each other's lives.

A big day in his life was when he got an electric wheelchair he could control. After 30 years, he could finally cross a room without help. Then there was no stopping him: he'd upset the hospital staff by driving himself downtown to the Corn Hill Festival.

In 2009, Monroe County proclaimed "Ecky Henne Day", in honor of his many years of work at the Pharmacy. The Democrat and Chronicle posted a nice article about him:

Ecky Henne lives at Monroe Community Hospital and works in the pharmacy. The certificate is from St. John Fisher for his help in educating pharmacy. Ecky also takes the students aside and gives them advice on how to interact with people with disabilities. "Look at the person, not the wheelchair," he stresses again and again.

Last year, Ecky went to Fisher to speak to new pharmacy students. He talked for 45 minutes without benefit of notes. "You could have heard a pin drop," Veneron says.

For all he has done, Fisher awarded Ecky a certificate of appointment as an instructor in the Wegmans School of Pharmacy at Fisher. A sticker with the words, "Professor Henne," is pasted on the top of his delivery box.

But an academic title doesn't protect Ecky from the ribbing of co-workers, who tease him about his special interest in, among other things, country music star Shania Twain. "I like her story," Ecky says, noting how Twain survived a difficult childhood. That said, he shows a visitor his room, and then he zips back to work. Time is wasting; he's got a job to do.

He also worked in the Monroe County Social Services office. Wearing a headband with a backwards pencil attached, he would operate a specialized calculator. When Ecky discovered a shortcut to its operation, he earned a certificate of appreciation from the manufacturer.

If you have thoughts or memories you would like to share, please send them to george@henne.org. We'll add them to this page. Feel free to forward this page to others who knew him.

George and Brian Henne

Thoughts and Memories

I can't express how sorry I am for your loss. In the time we worked together, he had such a large impact on my own life. Ecky showed me not just how to work with someone with disabilities, but to not see them as disabled. He message has always resounded with me... "See the person, not the chair!" We were all privileged to be a part of his life. I pray for peace for your family.
-- Neil Combs, Pharmacy

Ecky, I love you. I am praying God's will over your life. We have been together for 30 years. Thank you for being my friend and teacher.
-- Marsha Jackson, MCH Nursing Admin

I had the pleasure of meeting Ecky one day when visiting with Brian. I didn't know him well but came away with the understanding of what an extraordinary human being he was - his outlook on life an example to us all! Thank you for sharing his life's accomplishments. God bless his soul and the Henne family...
-- Rob Tait

He must have taken great pleasure in out-living the prognostications, every year for these many decades. I was the fortunate recipient of all kinds of advice from Ecky when I used to visit. I will always admire his determination to contribute to the lives of other people, and to the world around him.
-- Peggy

Thank you so much for sending me your tribute to Ecky. Dan and I are so pleased that we had a chance to visit him last June. We had a good time with him and learned how vital he was in the pharmacy operation. How great that he had a job all those years. One of the funniest experiences of my life was explaining how babies are made when we were babysitting you all. I was pregnant with Danny and Ecky was in hysterics.
-- Much love, Karen and Dan

First, I would like to express my sincere condolences. John emailed us this morning with the sad news and this afternoon sent us the link to this website. I am so glad that I got to know Ecky through the years. I am honored to be able to send a short remembrance on Ecky, who as a speaker in my Introduction to Diversity course made such an impact on the pharmacy students. Students in the class are required to write reflections after the speakers' presentations and one student wrote this after listening to Ecky:

"I found support and courage within Ecky. It was truly poignant. He addressed his own life obstacles briefly, but selflessly wanted to transmit his fearlessness to us; to encourage us, like him, to work hard and overcome our obstacles. I admire this about him. I aspire to use my experiences of loss or obstacles as courage and motivation to the extent that Ecky has."

Another student wrote:

Ecky's other main point simply had to do with living life to its fullest and never getting down or giving up on yourself. This was obviously really powerful to hear coming from someone in Ecky's circumstance, as his struggles and the amount of things he has overcome are unimaginable to someone like me, who hasn't seen anything close to that type of adversity. The point was that we all experience hardship, loss, and tribulations, but it's always up to us how we ultimately handle and live with them. Ecky talked about never taking anything for granted or selling yourself short, there's always a way to accomplish something as long as we're willing not to give up or stop fighting for it."

These are just a few examples of the tremendous impact that Ecky had on our students and I am sure that they will never forget him.
-- Amy L. Parkhill, Ph.D. Associate Professor, Pharmaceutical Sciences, St John Fisher College

Sad news. My condolences to you and your family.

The first time I met Ecky was on Dec. 26th, 1992. It coincided with the Great Rochester Wine Buying Expedition. (OK, the only reason I remember the exact date was that I wrote it on the detailed wine guide you typed up. Otherwise, I would have had trouble remembering the decade, let alone the year.)

I remember Ecky zipping around the floor in his electric wheelchair. It all seemed a bit too fast and reckless. But he never hit anything. In retrospect, I think he was just trying to impress me. Or maybe scare me. It worked.

I showed him some animated radar images I had generated with a really cool flood forecasting system I was developing at the time. Animated radar images were a big deal in those days. He wasn't impressed.

"Were they live?", he asked? Sadly, these were only pre-recorded events. Couldn't get a dial up connection from the US. This was before the Internet. Before a lot of things.

I still have a few of the bottles that I bought on that trip. We'll have to drink one in his honour next time we see each other.
-- Frank Schaedlich

 

I started at MCH on April Fool's Day 1999. It was on this day that I was introduced to Ecky. I was told that Ecky made the final delivery of medication at 4pm. This made a great deal of sense to me, since it made Nursing & Pharmacy more efficient. Over the months Ecky expanded his end of the day trip around the facility, so that before long he would be seen in the pharmacy late in the morning raring to go! A universal nursing complaint, regardless of facility, is that they don't have the medication available when they need it. Ecky's swift delivery of medication made this a non-issue at MCH. Ecky would often tell us to prioritize orders for a certain unit who had an urgent need of medication. Ecky would then do his best imitation of a NASCAR pit-stop crew boss until we had the order filled and secured in his locked box. I think the Medical Staff could feel Ecky's stare drilling into their skulls as he waited for orders for a late admission to be completed. (this is before we used faxes) I could certainly sympathize with Medicine, because once those orders arrived, Ecky expected a swift, accurate turn around from the pharmacy.

Ecky would orient new pharmacy students with a tour around MCH. We usually had three students at a time from SUNY Buffalo College of Pharmacy doing a six week rotation during their final year non-stop throughout the year. This would be one-third of all UB pharmacy graduates each year from 1999- 2009. MCH started taking students from Wegman's School of Pharmacy (WSoP) at St John Fisher College starting in 2009. MCH was now taking 2nd year, 3rd year, & 4th year pharmacy students. Ecky's participation in their orientation was critical. Ecky would go to WSoP at the beginning of the Fall semester to orient all of the P3 students to MCH. Ecky would also go to WSoP in the spring to share his life's experience with the P1 students in their Diversity Class. "Look at the person in the chair, not the chair", "believe in yourself", "get along with your fellow employees", etc. The first graduating class was in 2010 and Ecky & I would begin a tradition of attending their hooding ceremony. It was one last time to see our "kids" whom we had bonded with over the years. Many students would leave the stage after getting their diploma and give Ecky a hug on the way back to their seats.

One year Ecky's brother George attended a diversity class with us. I got to hear stories I never heard before. Ecky was the oldest of three bothers and his parents didn't allow him to abdicate his birth order. If the three boys were outdoors playing too late, Ecky was the one who got scolded. George also shared that Ecky played baseball with them. "He was third base". Ecky's mother was way ahead of the times. She organized parents of other special needs children, so that they would babysit for one another. This would give the parents a break, so they could go out to dinner and/or a movie. There are many physicians in the area who babysat for Ecky while they were in Medical School at the U of R.

There is scarcely a pharmacy you can go to in western NY without finding a pharmacist who knows Ecky.

Ecky had always wanted to take a ride on the fast ferry from Rochester to Toronto. My wife and I were soccer fans and wanted to see the Rhinos play in Toronto and Ecky's brother George lived in Toronto. This trip was a no brainer. We planned the trip well in advance and had some snags getting Ecky's passport, but Social Work was up to the challenge. The ferry ride was really cool and we discovered a recent pharmacy student making the trip with us with her mother. Ecky glowed the whole trip to Toronto and this continued as he got to see his "little brother" George. We all reunited later the next day for the soccer match. The ferry ride back to Rochester was bittersweet because Ecky had to leave his brother and his family behind.

Ecky had other passions besides Taylor Swift and Shania Twain. Ecky knew a great deal about aeronautics. He could tell you what plane Airbus was getting ready to introduce in the next few years. Ecky also paid close attention to Economics. Once we got the work caught up at the end of the workday I had to go on line to look up the latest Dow Jones activity for that day. Ecky usually knew what the market was trending and would tell me before I would look it up, what I would find.

I found over the years that things I took for granted Ecky had never experienced. Ecky had never had chinese food. After a few trials we found that his favorites were General Tso's chicken along with shrimp Lo-Mein. Who can ever think of white hot-dogs without thinking of Ecky. Ecky loved it when we did runs to Schallers for a white hot dog with mustard and onions. Sweet relish was sometimes an additional option, I always had to check first. Ecky was a life-long "choc-aholic". He never received treatment for this disease, deciding the best cure was more chocolate! Chocolate cookies, Hershey's Kisses, Oreo balls were all equal in Ecky's world. I recall one exception to the chocolate rule. There was nurse who used to work on FA5E who made strawberry shortcake with whipped cream. She was always sure to bring some in for Ecky during strawberry season. Ecky was sad when she retired.

After I retired I would come in on Sundays and go to a computer room and play Taylor Swift you-tube videos for Ecky. Ecky got bored of this after several months. I got permission to open the pharmacy on Sundays for a couple of hours to fill medication orders. Ecky would come down and we would really "crank up" Taylor Swift on Ecky's CD player. Daryl Howard, Nursing Supervisor can vouch for this, since he caught us more than once. We would finish our time together by loading Ecky up for another run to at least 10 of the 16 nursing units. Ecky always wanted to be busy doing something meaningful. This past Sunday was no exception and I do recall that I played the music a little louder than usual. Ecky would break into a huge grin when you cranked up the volume. He had always had to be considerate of others and keep the volume down.

I have known Ecky since 1999 and never once looked into his chart. I have told this to many many pharmacy students over the years and they often give me a quizzical look. "Friends don't look at friends medical records; once you do; you can no longer be friends" Ecky and I were friends and colleagues. When my wife and I remarried in 2001 we went immediately over to MCH to have our wedding picture taken with Ecky. My son was my best man and our two daughers were maids of honor. Everyone was in the picture !

Life isn't always fair, you make it the best way you can. When I have dreams with Ecky in them we are walking side by side. God bless you Ecky and your family.
-- John Veneron, MCH

Ecky was a great spirit, I remember one time his wooden box needed to be repaired so our Carpenter Steve did work on it, Ecky had a great relationship with Steve so when we put the box back on his wheel chair he didn't notice we replaced his picture of Shania Twain with a picture of Steve, he drove around like that for at least a week before he noticed...Oh was he mad! I don't think Steve ever worked on that box again. I will miss seeing Ecky in Ecky's Ally every day while he would go back and forth to the Pharmacy, he loved his job. Ecky jumped through hoops on a daily basis, now he no longer needs a chair to do it...RIP Ecky! You will be missed.
-- Lori Marmo

Working the night shift I never was able to see very much of Ecky, but when I was able to see him he was always so kind-hearted and had a great sense of humor. He could put a smile on your face in a matter of  minutes. Ecky made MCH his home and I am so honored and proud to be part of his second family. My thoughts and prayers go out to his family. Ecky is not in any more pain and no longer disabled. He's in heaven now and will be watching over both of his families. R.I.P Ecky you will be truly missed but will live on in our hearts and our memories forever
-- Dawn Moore MCH

 

We learned of Ecky's death today and send you many hugs. I know you have been very involved with him these last years. He really did lead an amazing life which is a real tribute to all of your family. I think especially of your mother in that regard.

It would be so merciful if his death were peaceful........

Hugs - xxxxxxmimi
-- Mimi Sauer, who was a babysitter and best friend to Ecky.

 

Oh George... I am sooo very sorry! This is so terrible! I know how much you loved your dear brother... May he rest in peace! When I left Toronto in December you were about to go to visit Ecky... I hope that your visit was good and gives you comfort. You did so many wonderful things for your brother, and visiting him often as you did was just one of those things. I know we, The Coupers, all enjoyed and appreciated meeting both Ecky, Brian and his family when they came to your wedding to Sandra and Ecky was your best man.

You, Brian and your family have my deepest condolences and sympathy. You know I both know and understand what you may be going through, and I am here for you for whenever you need a friend, or brother. I will be home in Toronto soon and hope that we have a chance to share and talk... If you feel up to it. Blessings and love to you and the family! BIG hugs!
-- Bruce Couper

I am so sorry to hear about Ecky! I have so many memories of him here at WSoP. He was here with you for every event and always put a smile on everyone’s face. Please know that his family and you are in my thoughts and prayers. He will always be shining down on everyone.
-- Nanette Huether, Wegmans School of Pharmacy

I smiled George when there was the piece about Ecky getting the motorized wheel chair and zooming around the halls and even outside. Going fast in motorized vehicles...a definite Henne!! It pleases my heart to hear he had that because you feel free when you are going fast in something man made. Reading this, Ecky affected a lot of people in a very good way.
-- Randy Weir

When Ecky was about seven, we lived just down the street and shared many happy times with him: flying kites in Genesee Park, sleigh rides up the Boulevard, summer days in the Adirondacks and many meals with all the Hennes. Ecky's patience, his formidable intellect, his curiosity and his delightful sense of humor were already well developed.

Just last week, I made meringues and thought of the time when Eckert was perhaps 11 and asked for some at the house on Genesee Park Blvd. I had come up from New York to visit and Reinhard made egg liquor so there was an abundance of egg whites. The meringues were something of a disaster; perhaps there was too much humidity that day? Anyway, with that twinkle in his eyes, Ecky's comment was , "Those aren't meringues; they're pancakes!" Indeed......

We've followed Ecky's life mostly from many miles away over the intervening decades. However, he has been an inspiration; at his death today, our feelings of sadness are tempered by admiration. Here's to Eckert Henne: his was the epitome of a life well lived!
-- Mimi (and Len) Sauer

George, we just received this sad message. It was a real honour for us to have met him. He was an inspiration and I know he had a formative role in making you who you are. We are very sorry that he is gone.
-- Jim Klotz and Bonnie Shettler

We were very sorry to hear of Ecky’s passing. We know how special he was to you and your family. One thing that is very clear is that Ecky lived his life to the fullest and had a huge impact on the people around him. It’s truly amazing to hear of the amazing ways he used his extreme intelligence and kindness to make a difference. We know that this leaves you and your family at such a loss, but we also know that Ecky will continue to live on in all those who loved and adored him.
-- Pam, Michael, Melanie & Matthew Peck

 

George and Sandra, thank you for hosting such a wonderful evening on Saturday.

George, Richard and I were very moved when you shared your brother's story and we felt honoured to be part of this evening with you and Sandra, and our wonderful friends and neighbours. There was something very special about Saturday's dinner. I think we all felt that way. From the stories about Ecky, to the wine Frank brought that we drank in Ecky's honour from 1992's Great Wine Buying Expedition ... to Ecky's favourite - Chocolate desserts - chocolate cupcakes and chocolate brownies, and the sincere thoughtfulness and caring we shared for one another... All elements of Ecky, and it felt as though he was there.

Hearing you speak about your brother and reading the many tributes, we are in awe of this great man we sadly never knew and the profound influence he had on the lives of so many... Your loss is truly shared by all who knew your brother and even those who only knew of him.

There is no doubt from the stories you shared about Ecky and the tributes we read, that Ecky will long be remembered for his perseverance, his courage to bravely face life's challenges, his selfless dedication to helping others without letting his circumstances get in the way, and the impact he had on the countless people he touched and inspired. But, most of all, Ecky will forever be remembered by all of us as a true hero!

Our sincerest condolences to you, and the entire family. May Ecky's memory be eternal and may his beautiful spirit Iive in all our hearts.
--Pam and Richard

Ecky had the greatest sense of humor. He would come to faith 4 East to drop off meds and we would tease him just to see him laugh.. Sharon Johnson had him believing that I had a drinking problem and she would tell Ecky I was off the wagon. Ecky enjoyed those days and when I moved from Faith 4 to Hope 2 as Manager I had to reassure him that I was "still on the wagon". He had such a twinkle in his eye that I thought it was just for me... I know that the twinkle was for everyone. We will always remember and miss you Ecky. for your kindness, knowledge and your acceptance for everyone. God Bless!
-- Diane Perkins RN, Monroe Community Hospital