Bob was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut on August 13, 1922, the youngest of nine witty and talented children. As a child, he discovered the magic relationship between the black dots on the paper and the keys of the piano and started his lifelong, profound relationship with music. His father, EJ, working in his shop in the basement, would bang on the ceiling with a broom handle to indicate his pleasure of whatever Bach, Haydn, Mozart, or Beethoven piece that Bobbie was playing upstairs.

He graduated from Miami University, Oxford, Ohio with a degree in Economics and served as a Navy pilot instructor until 1946.

After the war, he (along with many young Americans) went to France in search of education and adventure. He was studying at the Sorbonne when he met Phyllis Lee Pitroff who was working in Paris with the Marshall Plan. Three months later they were married in a civil service which they couldn’t understand because of the very fast Parisian French, although they were both fairly fluent. They just knew that when there was a pause, they should say “Oui”.

They moved to Richmond, Virginia where they took over the running of Select Personnel, an employment agency, and started their family: Jeff, Celeste, Spencer and Peter. Bob became the manager of Kelly Services (then Kelly Girls), and his business was as successful as several much larger cities.

Bob and Phyl’s home was a safe haven for many years for forward-thinking, anti-war, intellectual souls. There was music and games, oil painting and furniture-making, bonsai and astronomy, cooking and community, sailing, camping, composing, and poetry. He was introduced to Quakerism by Mary Hulburt of Richmond Friends Meeting in the 1960’s and formed a lifelong, profound relationship with both Mary and the Quaker community. He was an active member of Richmond Friends and he served as clerk in the 70s.

In the early 80s, Bob and Phyllis bought 40 wooded acres in Ashland, Virginia and founded a Quaker-oriented, intentional neighborhood made up of six families, Ashland Vineyard. They thrived together on their 40 acres for over 20 years, creating a successful community. Bob experimented with cultivating grapes which he sold to local wine-makers and grocery stores. In 1987, Phyllis died in the house built on that land by their children and friends.

When he was 81, he decided that he was ready to move away from the woods, that he was done hauling wood to heat his home, and he moved to Friends House Retirement Community, where he met an extraordinary woman who became his beloved friend, his ‘winter love’, Millie Bender. They had several wonderful, sweet years together before his dementia started to separate them. Bob loved his retirement at Friends House and had a rich life of studying poetry and mysticism, working on his memoirs and family history, and getting really good at pool and ping-pong.

Bob died peacefully in Thomas Hall on December 30, 2013.

There will be another memorial service at the Meeting House in Richmond, Virginia, on Saturday, February 22 at 3pm