Whatever doesn’t kill you can make
you stronger – as long as you don’t lose faith. Almost everyone misplaces faith every once in a while. But
that’s not the same as losing it. If you can find it again, it will take you
where you need to go, even if you don’t always know where that is.
Bob was born on November 6, 1928, in
Gloversville, New York, the third child of a Woolworth’s manager whose
“promotions” moved him and his family frequently. While he always felt the pain
of leaving much behind, he was able to take something with him through each
move: his talent for drawing.
“I drew pictures on every scrap of
paper I could find,” he said.
While Bob attended Academy High
School, he worked at the Planter’s Peanut store in downtown Erie. He decorated
the window according to the seasons. Shortly before he quit Planter’s, a girl
named Theresa came to work there. Neither she nor Bob had the slightest hint
that their meeting would turn out to be the most important event in their lives
as they would later marry.
While in high school, Bob developed
his artistic skills through a commercial art correspondence course. That
enabled him to get an art apprentice at Erie Engraving Company. His main job
was to come up with themes for high school yearbooks, but he was assigned other
commercial art work, such as designing packaging for new products.
A few years later, the Korean War
caused him to be drafted into the army. After training at Fort Belvoir,
Virginia, he sailed across the Pacific. In Korea, Bob was assigned to the 434th
Engineer Construction Battalion which built roads and structures away from the
front. He ordered the materials and supplies they needed. The only part of Bob that was wounded in Korea was his
interest in art.
His artistic
creativity revived when his wife gave him a set of oil paints and a canvas for
his birthday. With a calendar photo of a lighthouse as his model, he painted
the first of dozens and dozens of paintings. Soon, Bob started his own
commercial art business, mostly painting signs. Unfortunately, Bob’s commercial
art business wasn’t bringing in enough money. Fortunately, he had continued
to paint signs on his own. One of his customers was Ken Mulvey, who owned
Marley Advertising and Printing in Greenville. Ken asked Bob if he wanted to be
the firm’s artist. “I started working for them about 1980,” Bob said, “and
continued with them until I retired. I was their art department, designing
brochures, advertisements, just about everything, including photography.”
When Theresa died in 1991, Bob found
himself living alone. “My younger son David died four years later. Even my dog,
Willie, died in 2002. He was the last of my loved ones to leave home.”
Now, if you think Bob just shriveled
up and faded sadly away, you’re forgetting about the fact that loss, through
faith, can make you stronger. Bob certainly had faith. After Theresa passed
away, he painted more and more pictures, inspired by a unique conviction.
“God is the real artist, guiding my
hand,” he says. “He just gives me the opportunity to hold the brush and spread
the colors of His choice across the canvas.”
Bob has had an art exhibit at Notre
Dame, one at the First Presbyterian Church, and two at the Shenango Valley
Senior Center. Bob came to us in December of 2012 and teaches art classes on
a weekly basis in our Kennedy Art Studio where some of his work is featured as
well as in our beauty shop and around our halls.
