GREGORI V. ARMSTRONG, 66

From Chicago. Died June 3.

In his final conversation with his sister, despite being hospitalized with pneumonia and the coronavirus, Gregori Armstrong was more interested in talking about his plans to insulate the pipes in her home than his own health.

Whether stepping in to help two young boys who needed a father figure, raising his daughter as a devoted single parent or caring for his elderly mother, his commitment to others best exemplified the Chicago man’s life.

“He was the world’s greatest dad and grandfather,” said his daughter, Leslie Armstrong. “His heaven on earth was spending time with us. That is what he always called us — heaven on earth.”

Gregori Armstrong died June 3 of pneumonia, with COVID-19 as a contributing factor, public records show.

The retired city of Chicago building inspector and Iron Workers Local Union #1 member was 66.

He was the only son of Leslie and Betty Armstrong, a hardworking Chicago couple who raised their four children in the Lutheran faith. He had three sisters and, despite being the second youngest and small for his age, Armstrong saw himself as their protector.

“It was so funny to us,” said Twumwa Grant, one of his older sisters. “He would say to other children, ‘Don’t mess with my sisters.’”

Their father, Leslie, was a World War II veteran in the U.S. Army who worked at the post office for four decades. Betty Armstrong helped manage a bus company before becoming a nurse later in her life.

The family lived in a three-bedroom house in Englewood and knew everyone on the block. As the only boy, Gregori Armstrong had his own bedroom and was “spoiled rotten” by their mother, Grant teased.

Betty Armstrong was civic-minded and often attended neighborhood and school events in the evening while the children’s father entertained them with his collection of jazz music. It was from his dad that Armstrong developed a lifelong love for jazz, especially the music of John Coltrane. He had more than 5,000 albums from the collections of his father and other relatives.

After a fire at a neighbor’s home spread, destroying the Armstrongs’ house and surrounding properties, the family moved to a three-flat in the South Shore neighborhood.

Armstrong graduated South Shore High School in 1972 and enrolled in the University of Florida at Gainesville to study photography. He left Florida after two years and began studying at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

It was around this time that he married a childhood sweetheart. The marriage did not last long but, according to his sister, the young couple’s love story began in the eighth grade when he first proposed.

“Her mother told him to come back when he was older and had grown,” Grant said, “and he did.”

Armstrong worked for a short time as a photographer for a fashion magazine but, in need of a more dependable paycheck, he entered an apprenticeship program in the Iron Workers Local Union #1. He worked over the next four decades for the city of Chicago, building and maintaining bridges, roads and other public infrastructure. A local newspaper ran a photo of him one winter putting up the city’s Christmas tree, back then displayed in Daley Plaza.

He was proud of his work and union brothers. On his Facebook page, Armstrong posted a photo of himself in a hard hat standing on a steel beam on the 45th floor of a skyscraper in the Loop.

“Real ironwork before harnesses and bucket lifts,” he boasted.

He later became a city building inspector, a job his sister said he never really enjoyed but one that was less physically demanding.

“He didn’t like being the bad guy,” Grant said. “He wanted to tell you what was wrong and then be the one to fix it, not just hand out tickets.”

After a girlfriend’s death, Armstrong

stepped in as a father figure for her toddler son. He later filled that role again for the young son of another girlfriend with whom he became lifelong friends.

Relatives say Armstrong considered both boys to be his sons and remained close to them throughout his life.

His only biological child, a daughter whom he named after his father, came along in 1989 when Armstrong was in his mid-30s. He fought for custody and raised her as a single father.

“He did have three sisters who helped a lot, but he definitely was very involved,” Leslie Armstrong said.

Grant, his sister, recalled how for his daughter’s first birthday party, he rented out her preschool and had a horse-drawn carriage. He also hired someone to dress up as Barney, the singing-and-dancing purple dinosaur TV character.

He paid for private schools and made sure his children had what they needed to succeed in life, his sister said.

Known for his impeccable style, complete with a hat atop his head and shoes that always matched his suits, Armstrong was the “life of any party,” according to his daughter.

Work was Gregori Armstrong’s real passion, his family said. He loved to rehab homes and fix things. A jack of all trades, he was skilled in plumbing, electrical, home design and other contractor work.

He bought his own fixer-upper in the South Shore neighborhood and moved in his aging mother and Grant to help him care for her until she died in December 2013. His father had died from leukemia in October 1992.

He also rehabbed his sister’s investment building, and was quick to offer his help.

“My brother could not say ‘no’ to anybody,” Grant said. “He was no saint, but in his heart he always had his values correct. Our last conversation exemplified that. It was always, “‘What do you need?’ That was how he was.”

Gregori Armstrong fell ill about three weeks before his death. A lifelong asthmatic, he assumed it was another bout with pneumonia. Two coronavirus tests came back negative, his daughter said. A third test was positive.

Armstrong was hospitalized May 30. He told relatives he would be home “in no time,” but he soon suffered a stroke. His organs began to fail. The day before he died, Leslie Armstrong said the hospital allowed her to see him one final time. Standing outside the door of his room, she spent an hour there and called relatives so that they could say their goodbyes as well.

“I just said ‘thank you’ to him,” she recalled of her final words to her father. “I told him, ‘I love you and if you want to go or if you want to stay and fight, we’re here to support you.’ You really don’t know if they can hear you, but I wanted him to know that he didn’t have to keep fighting for us and could do whatever he wanted to do.”

He was not expected to survive the night so, when he did, his daughter was left with the heartbreaking decision of whether to discontinue life support. Grant recalls the advice she offered her niece.

“I told her we’re all praying for a miracle, but if he’s going to have a miracle it’ll be with or without that machine,” she said.

He died June 3, within a minute of being removed from life support, just two days after his daughter’s birthday.

Grant said her brother was “a tough cookie” who survived a childhood illness, previous bouts of pneumonia and even a work-related accident when he fell off a bridge and broke both arms. She said the family joked he had nine lives.

“In my heart, I know if he had not had COVID he would still be alive,” she said. “I miss him so much already and I know it’s only going to get worse. I just feel very fortunate to have been his sister.”

Aside from his daughter and sister, Armstrong is survived by two sons, Nichrien “Nick” Banks and Leonard Burton; two other sisters, Olabisi and Kemba OlaKolade; nine grandchildren; and 11 nieces and nephews.

A memorial will be held at a later date.