William “Bill” Arndt arranged the furniture in his Wheaton apartment so his pet rabbits could exercise.
Francois, Rocky, Fifi, Willow, Phoebe, there were many over the years. He joked that they had free rein of the place — because they did. He let them roam.
He rescued several from a suburban feed store — saving them from being purchased as meals for pet snakes.
One was pregnant and had nine more.
“He didn’t have the heart to give any away,” said Patty Dohe, a veterinary technician with Midwest Bird and Exotic Animal Hospital in Elmwood Park who knew Mr. Arndt for nearly 20 years and treated many of his bunnies. “They were his best friends, you know, he loved these guys.”
Mr. Arndt was constantly taking them to the vet for a number of ailments, or to have their teeth filed down — rabbit teeth never stop growing.
One rabbit from the litter, named Austen, didn’t get along with the others — so Mr. Arndt let him stay in his bedroom.
He didn’t like penning them in when he left to catch a train downtown or to Evanston to teach a finance class at Northwestern University.
“It was so clear that the teaching was such a key aspect of his life,” said Peter Kaye, a former Northwestern administrator. “He stood out among all faculty because of his devotion to his students. His job didn’t end when the class was over.”
Mr. Arndt began teaching the finance classes in 1989. They were geared toward young professionals who needed help in that area to advance their careers.
“I called him our unsung hero of the faculty,” Kaye said. “And he had a sly sense of humor and was certainly capable of laughing at himself — just a delightful guy once you got to know him.”
Mr. Arndt previously worked for years as an actuary for an insurance company.
“To know him was something else,” said John Yednock, a former colleague and close friend.
“He was a very opinionated man, to say the least. He’d argue to the hilt, and sometimes that would get him in trouble in the business world. If he thought his boss was wrong he wouldn’t back down, and most of the time, Bill was right, but people don’t like being told they’re wrong,” he said.
“My kids called him a big teddy bear, because he was 6-3. And we loved him. He could be hard to get to know because he had a phobia that made him think he might have offended you,” he said.
He often picked up additional jobs for extra cash, Yednock said, noting that Mr. Arndt had a longtime side gig as a limousine driver.
In recent years, Mr. Arndt began experiencing health problems and tapped Esther McDowell, a former student whom he mentored, to take over his class at Northwestern.
“I came to know him as someone who was very caring. I called him the gentle giant,” said McDowell, noting that Mr. Arndt remained in touch with and guided a number of former students.
During the pandemic, McDowell dressed up in a funny hat and glasses and got together with Mr. Arndt on a video conference call to sing him “Happy Birthday.”
“He was just so happy. ... I read him a bunch of jokes. One was, ‘Why is the math book always sad? Because it has a lot of problems!’ And later he wrote me a text and said, ‘Thank you so much, I can’t even tell you the smile and joy you brought to my life in that moment.’”
Mr. Arndt, 80, died June 18 at home while listening to classical music, and with his one remaining rabbit, Phillipe, in the room. The cause was heart failure.
“He looked for the best in life, reasons to be happy and thankful,” said Rina Kumnova-Brugess, a former neighbor.
Kumnova-Brugess was asked to help Mr. Arndt, who lived one floor below, with a computer problem about 10 years ago. They became like family.
“I just cleared up a few things, and he was, like, ‘How did you do that? That’s amazing,’ ” she said. “It felt nice to help him. It was very simple. He’d come over for dinner, and he just loved to laugh. Hhis laugh is the best part about him. He looked for the comedy in everything.”
Mr. Arndt was born in Chicago and grew up in Maywood. He was a proud Proviso East High School alum and went to see basketball games there all his life. He focused on quantitative methods and statistics at the University of Illinois at Chicago before getting a business degree from the University of Chicago.
Services have been held.
