Robert Riggs (1919-2008)
RIGGS, FARNHAM, MEYER, ALLEN, WILEY, MATRE
Posted By: Ames Tribune
Date: 10/15/2008 at 09:04:59
THE AMES TRIBUNE, Ames, Story County, Iowa, Tuesday, October 14, 2008.
May 1, 1919-Oct. 8, 2008
Robert Riggs, 89, of Clear Lake, died Wednesday, Oct. 8, 2008, at Regions Hospital in St. Paul, Minn. A memorial service will be at 11 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 18, at Clear Lake United Methodist Church, 508 Second Ave. N., in Clear Lake, with the Rev. Diana Hoover officiating. Visitation will precede the service at 10 a.m. at the church, and lunch will follow the service in the Fellowship Hall.
Robert Elba Riggs was born May 1, 1919, in Garber, the fourth child of Fred and Lilly Riggs. Robert's father was a minister in EUB churches throughout Iowa: Garber, Moravia, Granger, Dumont, Des Moines, Webster City and Ames. He graduated from Des Moines East High School in 1936. He met Florence Farnham in Webster City and they were married March 1, 1942, in Ames, by Robert's father. Robert graduated from Webster City Junior College and attended the State University of Iowa, but was interrupted by enlisting for World War II.
From 1942 to 1946, he served in the U.S. Army. He achieved the rank of second lieutenant in the Medical Administrative Corps. Upon being discharged from the Army, he and Florence returned to Iowa City, where he completed a bachelor's degree and certification in hospital administration, taking special postgraduate work in hospital administration at State University of Iowa, Indiana University, and University of Chicago. He worked as assistant to the superintendent at the University of Iowa Hospital.
In 1951, the family moved to Clinton, where he became the superintendent at Jane Lamb Memorial Hospital.
In June 1954, he and Florence were commissioned as missionaries by the Board of Global Ministries of the Methodist Church, to serve at Severance Hospital and Yonsei University Medical College in Seoul, Korea, as superintendent. In March 1956, the family sailed to Seoul, Korea. In the post-Korean War years, he oversaw the building of a new 365-bed/1,500 outpatient/day hospital, medical school and nursing school on the Yonsei University campus. He also was treasurer of Seoul Foreign School, a kindergarten through grade 12 school for the children of missionaries, which his four children attended. His vision was instrumental in establishing a board policy to set aside 15 percent of tuitions annually into a building fund back in the 1960s, and to this day has given the school the means to become a state-of-the-art school in one of the largest cities of the world. He later founded Friends of Seoul Foreign School in the U.S. as a support organization to the school in Korea.
In 1968, he and Florence completed their mission term and returned to the U.S. After a year of speaking on behalf of the Mission Board, he oversaw the construction and management of Bluff Medical Clinic in Clinton. In 1972, he became the director of Meth-Wick Manor, a Methodist retirement home in Cedar Rapids. In 1980, he and Florence moved to Sidney, where Robert became the director for Sidney Health Care Center.
He and Florence retired to Clear Lake in 1985. They spent winters in LaFeria, Texas, in their 32-foot Holiday travel trailer, for the next 10 years. He had been an active member of Clear Lake United Methodist Church, serving on boards, other volunteer groups and singing in the choir.
He is survived by two children, Brian Riggs and his wife, Gail, of Point of Rocks, Md., and Gail Meyer and her husband, Lothar, of Clear Lake; seven grandchildren; one great-grandson; two sisters, Jean Riggs and MaryAlice Allen; and two brothers, Carl and Donald Riggs.
He was preceded in death by his wife, Florence; his parents, Fred and Lilly Riggs; two brothers, Max and Glen Riggs; one sister, Beth Wiley; and his children, Ruth Ann Matre and Eric Riggs.
Memorials can be made to Hospice of North Iowa.
Ward Van-Slyke Colonial Chapel, 101 N. Fourth St., in Clear Lake, is in charge of arrangements.
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