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Robert Joseph Arvin
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. This biographical sketch is under development.
Robert was born 23 April 1918 to John Arvin and Ruth (nee Spake) Arvin in Kansas City Missouri.
His mother Ruth died of tuberculosis when he was just two years old. His Aunt Loretta, John's younger sister, raised him in her household after Ruth's death.
He attended grammar school and high school in Kansas City. He was attending Kansas City College (later merged with University of Missouri at Kansas City) as World War II was breaking out. He dropped out of school and enlisted in the Army Air Corps, and served as an enlisted man, a flight engineer, in several locations with the Air Corps. One location was a training facility at Sebring Florida which prepared crews to fly bombers, principally the B-17. Crew after crew would come to Sebring, be trained, and depart for Europe. Each flight engineer was assigned an individual plane to care for, so they would know all the peculiarities of that plane, and what to do to keep it running.
As the War progressed, the Axis nations having been defeated in Europe, the United States made an an all-out push to
defeat Japan in the Pacific. Ultimately, even the training crews were set to be sent to the Pacific, to be attached to Wings then flying bombing missions. Robert was stationed in Salt Lake City, Utah, at this time. Soon came the day when they were to depart for the Pacific.
They were actually in the air flying towards their first stop, Hawaii, when their captain came on over the intercom radio and said, "Boys, the war is over. President Truman has dropped 'the bomb' on Japan. We're going home." There was a lot of cheering, shouting and yelling as the plane turned around and returned to the mainland.
During the war, Robert made good friend with a pilot, Roger Bannerman, who was married to his wife Mildred. Captain Bannerman told Mildred one time, "That's the nicest guy I know." Bannerman told Robert privately that, if anything happened to him, he wanted him to care for Mildred.
Captain Bannerman was shot down on a bombing raid in the Netherlands about 1943. The remains of the crew were not located and identified until nearly a quarter century later.
Robert helped Mildred through her grief, and they eventually married after the war, in December of 1945. They located in Kansas City, Robert going to work for his uncle Frank Jackson at his printing company. Rental apartments were in very short supply at the time, as a post-war boom surged in the country, and the newlyweds had a hard time finding a place to stay. Mildred ("Millie") remembered they rented the upper story of a home based on telling the landlord that they both worked. But when she became pregnant, she stayed home and had to try to remain very quite upstairs all day, to avoid tipping off the landlord to her presence. But they soon resolved to build their own home, and had a home built on Kansas City's south side, just beyond the then city limits at 85th Street. Their first child was born in February 1947. They named him Robert, Jr., Two daughters were born with the next five years.
Robert, Jr., now has a son, John Arvin. John is married and now has a family of his own--a daughter and a son. The son was given the wonderful Irish name of Connor Arvin. So both John Arvin and Connor Arvin now carry forward the proud name of Arvin (Ó hEireamhón), as has been done from the twelfth century, for perhaps thirty generations.
The family lived at the home at 8521 Grande Pas for many years, attending the Catholic parish church, Christ The King. The children attended the school also.
Over the years, the children grew up. The two older children moved out, but still resided in the Kansas City metro area. The youngest child continued to live in the home.
Mildred died in July 2000 from the complications of an operation to repair an Abdominal Aortic Aneurism. Robert continued to live at the familiy home in the care of his youngest child, who now also had a child. His health declined as he suffered from the effects of kidney desease. One cancerous kidney had to be removed, and he had to undergo kidney dialysis at a dialysis center, on a schedule of three times per week.
On a chilly but bright sunny Saturday afternoon, 24 March 2001, I picked him up at the center for the trip home. He had to use a walker now, but he was in good spirits, and his health seemed better than it had lately. As we usually did, we stopped at a fast food restaurant to pick up a sandwich and a soft drink for him to eat later. We got to the house, and since my sister was not at home at the time, I helped him inside. This was the house which he had built more than a half century before, where he had lived in with his wife for all those many years, and where they had raised their family. He went in the front door, which opened directly into the living room, and sat down on the sofa. I said goodbye, and left him drinking his drink. I had a few errands to run and got back to my house about an hour later.
At home we got a frantic call from my sister, saying that Dad had collapsed and been taken to the hospital. We rushed to the hospital, and discovered that he was already gone, and in fact had died before he was even taken there. My sister told me she had come home and found him slumped over on the couch in the living room, still clutching the soft drink in his hands. His heart had simply stopped beating.
Robert Joesph Arvin, Sr., is buried at Calvary Cemetery in Kansas City, close to where William and his wife Margaret, with their son John Ambrose Arvin are buried. Frank D. Jackson and his wife Loretta (Arvin) Jackson are also buried there. Robert is buried is a family plot next to his wife Mildred.
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Robert Joseph Arvin, Jr.
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