Robert Schindler Sr., the father of the late Terri Schiavo, died on Saturday in Florida. He was 71.

“My dad was a man of integrity, character and compassion who was blessed with a close and loving family,” said his son Bobby, http://www.catholicnews.com/data/briefs/cns/20090831.htm. “He taught all three of his children to respect and value life and to love our fellow man.

“Even at the height of the battle to save my sister Terri’s life, when his patience and temperance was near exhaustion, he managed to display a gentleness of spirit. Yet it was his unfathomable strength that allowed him to shoulder up his own heartache and lead us through our darkest hour. What greater legacy could a man leave behind?”

Schiavo collapsed in February 1990 for reasons still unclear and spent the rest of her life in what doctors said was a persistent vegetative state. Eventually her husband, Michael Schiavo, sought to have her taken off life support. Schindler and his wife, Mary, objected, and sought the right to make medical decisions for their daughter.

Court-appointed doctors said Terri Schiavo had no real consciousness or chance of recovery, and Michael Schiavo testified that she had told him she would not want to be kept alive artificially. Pinellas-Pasco County Circuit Court Judge George Green sided with Michael Schiavo, and ordered Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube removed.