Tuesday, January 1, 2019
My heartfelt sympathies and condolences go out to all members of Bob’s extended family and friends upon his recent passing. Bob and I were members of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute where we graduated the same year, 1951. Many years ago, after I relocated to the Capital District I remember a very nice visit I had with Bob in Granville where he recounted the history of his family business, gave me a great tour of the factory and explained the workings of the wood burning furnace he had designed that produced heat for the factory without causing smoke or particulates which mystified the local EPA folks. He showed me his design station equipped with optics to help with this MD problem and told me of the epiphany he had during a sailing experience for updating the Director Chair design. Among his other activities he mentioned his hobby of long-distance horse racing, something I never heard of. We had lunch where I had an opportunity to meet his wife Lois, and other family members whose names I cannot remember. At the time I believe his daughter was pretty much running the day-to-day operations of the company.
Years after that I had a rather extended catch up telephone conversation with Bob, when he explained that he was still active with the product design aspects of the company, walked to work most days and was still riding horses. Things seem to be fine. More recently, several months after I was over rather serious cancer surgery, I felt the need to do another catch up call, but regrettably never executed. Even more recently, within the past two weeks, I had an email conversation with Gerry Weeks posing the possibility of getting together with Bob. Gerry Is the widow of Bob Weeks, who was another one of our fraternity brothers and lives in Wallingford, Vermont just across the mountain from Granville. Quite some number of years (1999?) ago, Bob and Gerry hosted a fraternity get together that included Bob and Lois.
While I cannot say that I was the fast friend of his, Bob was certainly was a much admired friend who will remembered and who I am sure touch the lives of many who knew him. He led an active and inspiring life with a legacy of many good deeds his family forever can be proud of.
