By Rebecca Billman
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Mr. Brumleve

MILFORD - Wilson L. Brumleve - a lawyer with Brumleve, DeCamp and Wood in Cincinnati for 35 years - died after having a stroke Nov. 11 at Sem Haven Health Care Center here.

Mr. Brumleve, 87, was a graduate of Culver Military Academy in Indiana and the University of Cincinnati.

During the late 1920s and early '30s, he was a tennis player of some note, playing with the Walnut Hills Tennis Team.

He earned a law degree from the Salmon P. Chase College of Law in 1939 and joined the FBI the following year.

A special agent assigned to Little Rock, Ark., he traveled back to Cincinnati to marry Helen M. Bohmer in 1941. They returned to Little Rock, where the first of their eight children was born.

Mr. Brumleve next moved his family to New York City, where he worked on espionage cases for the FBI for the duration of World War II. Afterward, he returned to Cincinnati because "he felt that he had served his country and he wanted to get started with his law practice," said his son Kent Brumleve of Springdale.

He settled in Clifton and joined his father's law firm, where he represented clients such as Federated Department Stores and Geico, Liberty Mutual and USAA insurance companies.

Mr. Brumleve retired in 1977, two years after being injured in a boat explosion on Lake Michigan.

He moved from Clifton to Destin, Fla., that year, then back to Cincinnati in 1998, living at the Seasons Retirement Community in Kenwood and Sem Haven in Milford.

Mrs. Brumleve, his wife of 58 years, died in 1999.

In addition to his son Kent, survivors include: three other sons, Wilson Gerard Brumleve of Estes Park, Colo., Charles Brumleve of Marquette, Mich., and Christopher Brumleve of Cedarville, Mich.; four daughters, Nancy Jarvis of Arlington Heights, Ill., Helen Alexander of Denver, Jane Dunn of Mount Vernon, Iowa, and Lois Sedaccaof Milford; 30 grandchildren; and 11 great-grandchildren.

Services have been held. Burial was at Spring Grove Cemetery.

Memorials: Friends of Les Cheneaux Community Library, P.O. Box 332, Hessel, MI 49719; or Les Cheneaux Maritime Museum, Cedarville, MI 49719.

E-mail rbillman@enquirer.com