To Grandpa

I am still working on the next part of Germanic Languages, which will cover the North Germanic Languages. It is mostly done now, and will be ready by next week at the latest. But it’s not ready yet, and I won’t post it before it’s ready. Instead, I decided to post something deeply personal to me that also resonates with the history of this country.

My maternal grandpa was born in 1926 and died in February 2025. I helped with his care in his latter days and was there for his death. A prolific writer, he wrote a memoir and a novel. These helped me compose this eulogy, which I give at his funeral. I hope that you will find in this not only an expression of genuine love, but an interesting snapshot of American life— both his and my own.

By Collisteru

To be presented on Wednesday the 19th of March, 2025.

My grandpa Bob lived a life full enough to deserve the moniker given to his generation: the greatest. During nearly a century, he fought poverty and war; he moved hundreds of miles from his native roost, he contributed to the advancement of the nation, he loved and was loved.

The circumstances of his birth were not ideal. He was born in Peoria, Illinois just in time for the Great Depression. After his parent’s divorce in 1930, he moved into the care of his grandparents, where he lived with his sister and cousins. His younger brother died tragically in a car accident when Bob was eight, inspiring a habit of careful driving that kept him from the same fate.

Even though Bob struggled as a child, he saw bright lights that pointed his direction in life. He told me about how the new cars and electrical gadgets at the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair sparked his love of technology. During his early years, Bob attended the Boy Scouts, the YMCA, and the Young People’s Christian Union. He learned to play the Coronet with great skill, playing in marches and state-level events, beginning a love of music that would also follow him throughout life.

His proudest early accomplishment was enrolling in the Air Force in 1944. The young men around him said, “Why study history when you could be making it?” After finishing high school, he boarded a train bound for Biloxi, Mississippi to begin basic training. While Bob appreciated the new prestige, muscle, and discipline that the Air Force offered, the realities of war disillusioned him. His most striking memory of boot camp, and one he frequently related to me, was that the sole difference between him and the German prisoners of war was their uniforms.

Bob never saw war as the Treaty of San Francisco was signed before he finished training. His next step was Bradley University, where he joined the Alpha Pi fraternity and bonded with his cousin at basketball games. Although he dropped out two years in, the education he did get still helped him later in life.

Soon, after college, Bob met the love of his life at the Quadrant Single’s Club in Peoria. Iona and Bob had a brief courtship that blossomed into marriage in 1953.

For nine years, Bob bounced between odd jobs. For brief stints he moved to Florida and back, owned a business repairing TV sets, and worked at Pabst and at Caterpillar. He had especially fond memories of Caterpillar that he often mentioned to me. In 1962, he moved to Boulder to take advantage of the tech industry and found a stable career and life.

Among the first things Bob did after moving to Boulder was enrolling his two daughters in Sunday School at this church. The importance of religion to him can be surmised from the line he chose to begin his memoir with:

“My entire family, both paternal and maternal, were bound to the Universalist church and I was baptized there.”

For a few years in Boulder he worked as a service manager for Montgomery Ward and as a machinist for Granville-Phillips before starting his job at the post office in 1966. Bob took pride in his career and worked hard to provide for his family. He observed that doing this with no college degree would be far harder today, writing that “had I began my working career [in 1990], the opportunities to ‘work my way up’ would no longer exist.” He saw firsthand the ossification of American class structure.

However, Bob at this time Bob was able to work up the ranks of the post office until, by 1983, he became the facilities manager and supervised many locations. He retired with honors in 1990.

During retirement, Bob found more time for his many hobbies. Throughout life electronics and mechanics drew him in like a magnet. The following passage from his novel, which is almost certainly autobiographical, illustrates this well:

“Attracted by noise and motion of machinery, I ascended the metallic stairs to tred on a catwalk surrounded by throbbing and hissing implements… there was an abstract introduction-- the seed of a bond which grew to lifelong rapport with gauges, valves, levers, pipes, meters and electrical pathways.”

His love affair with mechanisms resulted in the birth of many of the amateur engineering projects that adorn the house to this day.

Art, especially writing and music, also remained important to Bob after retirement. In the 1990s he wrote a novel and his memoir, and for many years he enjoyed playing piano.

He was my only grandfather that I got to know personally and we cared deeply about each other. We shared a love for classical music, especially Tchaikovsky. We talked about subjects like history and electrostatics often-- he had a sharp mind, evidenced by both his curiosity for every subject in the sciences and the arts and by his successful mechanical projects. He helped take care of me when I was a child and let me live with him and see his last days as I went to college. He made obvious his confidence in and love for me.

He impressed us all with his longevity, a rare feat earned by not smoking, not drinking after age 61, and getting regular exercise by working around the house.

To me, Bob Allton exemplified resilience, curiosity, and devotion to family. From his humble beginnings in Peoria to his final days here in Boulder, he approached life with ingenuity and care. The mechanical projects throughout his home, the music he played, the stories he wrote, and the wisdom he shared will continue to inspire those of us fortunate enough to have known him. His legacy lives on, not just in what he built with his hands, but in what he built in our hearts.

Thank you.