Rosholt, Robert L. 1929 - 2021

ROSHOLT

Posted By: Joy Moore (email)
Date: 6/10/2022 at 15:51:27

April 27, 1929 - March 2, 2021

U.S. Veteran

Robert L. Rosholt died peacefully of natural causes on March 2, 2021, at the age of 91. At the moment of his passing, he was with his sons, being told how much he was loved and appreciated. He will be missed by all those who called him Bob, Robert, Professor Rosholt, Dr. Rosholt, Bobby (only his older sister, and even when he was in his 80s!), Dr. Bob, Uncle Bob, Grandpa Bob, and most by the three of us who call him Dad.

Dad was, at his very core, an historian. He was inspired at a young age to examine events of the world, past and present, and analyze them from primarily a political point of view. He also sought to record and examine the events of his own life and the lives of those closest to him, often in great detail. While our lives are documented in thousands of prints/slides, hours of video, and countless handwritten notes/letters/cards, most of his own early life is only documented in the stories he and those of his generation told. Fortunately, he wrote down much of his own personal history, most notably the first 27 years of his life (the years “BL”, i.e., Before Lucy). We have put some of these primary source documents, written in his own handwriting or in Mom’s, online and provided a link to them at the end of this obituary.

Dad spent the last 19 months of his life as a resident of the memory care wing at Aase Haugen Senior Services, a continuing care retirement community in Decorah, Iowa. Most of those months came after our mom, Lucille Rosholt, died suddenly in September 2019. His existence there was peaceful, and he was cared for by an incredible group of committed and compassionate staff members, who happily indulged his sweet tooth with a daily dose of his favorite treat – ice cream! We cannot adequately express the gratitude we have for these people, who, in the face of the COVID restrictions that kept a window between Dad and us during the last year of his life, became an extension of our family and made sure Dad not only was cared for but felt cared for as well. Many wept with us like family on the day he died.

Prior to entering Aase Haugen, Dad spent the previous 62 years with the love of this life, our mother, fully engaged in a life of service, adventure, study, teaching, parenting, and grand-parenting (and list-making!). The last 20 of those years were spent living in Decorah, Iowa, his third stint there and a place which proved to be an ideal location for their golden years. They lived one block from the campus of Luther College, Dad’s undergraduate alma mater, after having purchased their house from Sally Naeseth, whose husband, Erling, takes credit for having introduced them to one another in 1956 when they both were teaching at Luther. Dad and Mom have described the move to Decorah as their own personal homecoming, given that the new house was just a block away from the apartment they lived in as newlyweds in 1957.

These two decades were filled with a good number of domestic and international travel adventures, many of which were enjoyed with Betty Brown, someone our parents described as not only the dearest of friends, but also a superb travel companion. It was during this time that Dad fulfilled one of his more challenging life goals – visiting the state capitol in each of the 50 US states. The time in Decorah was also filled with music, one of Dad’s lifelong passions and one he shared with Mom. Due in part to their proximity to the Luther campus, Dad and Mom were fixtures at recitals and music events of all kinds, bringing them immense joy as well as many social connections. It seems fitting that the last musical event Dad attended, and his last non-medical excursion from Aase Haugen, was to attend the Christmas at Luther concert in December 2019, held annually in Luther’s Center for Faith and Life.

This was also Dad’s era as “Grandpa Bob.” His grandchildren – Allison, Grace, Jonah, Evan, and Charlie – got to know who he was and developed their own stories about Grandpa Bob during this time. Much to Dad’s and Mom’s delight, their house on Center Street in Decorah was the focal point for family gatherings. Dad enjoyed giving his grandchildren $50 bills, always reminding them that he and Ulysses S. Grant, the man on that bill, share the same birthday. This is one of the many stories that begins with “Remember how Grandpa Bob used to....” Among other favorite memories are his singing of Little Bo Peep in a wobbly falsetto and his reading of the same table prayer out of an ancient Lutheran hymnary before all evening meals (which included many Mabe’s pizzas!). Along with Mom, Dad reveled in keeping up with the development of his grandchildren, logging thousands of miles of travel to be present and see concerts, plays, games, and ceremonies of various kinds and viewing thousands of photos and untold hours of video. He had great admiration for these five souls (and their mothers, Ann, Kristin, and Kathy) and loved them all dearly.

The ten years prior to living in Decorah were definitely the “go years” for Dad and Mom. They spent a significant portion of each year away from their home in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania, driving tens of thousands of miles each year, as well as climbing on the occasional airplane. Trips were often crafted around seeing family members and old friends who were sprinkled across the country, and it is this relationship maintenance that is among Dad’s and Mom’s defining characteristics.

The beginning of the “go years” was marked by Dad’s retirement from Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania where he spent more than two decades of his professional career, the vast majority as chairman of the BUP Political Science Department. He was also heavily involved in University governance, state and local politics, and a variety of other leadership roles, including running perhaps the best-organized Cub Scout Pinewood Derby of the pre-computer era! Despite a great many professional and leadership successes during this phase of life, Dad would tell you that his most satisfying and fulfilling endeavor was raising us, his three sons, Bill, Tom, and Mark.

Naturally we still talk about the many experiences facilitated by our parents that allowed us to see an incredible variety of people, understand what is happening in the world, enjoy limitless natural beauty, and learn how to get along sitting in the back seat of a 1970 Ford Country Sedan station wagon. The crown jewel of these experiences was a transformative year abroad (Sep ’76 to Aug ’77) during which we lived in London and spent school vacations traveling 36,000 miles across most of Europe and to the edges of Asia and Africa. Dad was the chief architect of this odyssey, logging almost every mile behind the wheel, co-creating the itinerary with Mom, and using his wealth of historical knowledge to add immeasurable value to the experience.

In the decade prior to the years in Bloomsburg (the 1960s), Dad’s focus was on starting a family, launching his teaching career, and finishing his doctorate. Dad and Mom logged years in Wooster, Ohio, where Bill was born, teaching at the College of Wooster; in Washington DC, where Tom was born, working for NASA while completing his dissertation, An Administrative History of NASA, 1958-1963 (NASA SP-4101, https://www.history.nasa.gov/SP-4101.pdf); and in St. Paul, Minnesota, where Mark was born, doing coursework for his PhD at the University of Minnesota (Go Gophers!).

About one-third of the 1950s was spent on his first and second stints in Decorah, getting his undergraduate degree from Luther College in 1951 and returning to teach there five years later (Go Norse!). In between, he got a Master’s degree from the University of Minnesota, where he met his oldest and dearest friend, Jay Davenport, and spent time in the Army, with assignments both stateside and in Pusan, Korea. His military experience had unexpected significance for Dad because his training as a heavy weapons infantryman led to substantial hearing loss, an issue that proved to be a burden for Mom, a limiting factor in the experiences he chose, and a likely contributor to cognitive decline in his late 80s. It was upon his return to Decorah in 1956 to teach History and Economics at Luther that he had the incredible fortune to meet Madge Lucille Stansberry, who had joined the Luther music faculty the year prior. A year after getting married in the summer of 1957, they left Luther and Decorah for a year in London, England, where Dad studied at the London School of Economics.

Before heading off to college at Luther in the fall of 1947, Dad spent the back half of his formative years on a farm in Cyrus, Minnesota, with his brother, Don, his sister, Jeanette, his father, Herman, and his mother Olga, whose death in 1946, when Dad was 16, had a significant impact on him that he spoke about throughout his life. Electricity became available on the farm when he was 12, and it was listening to the announcement of the attack on Pearl Harbor on the radio that turned him into a self-professed “news junky” and started him down his path of educational pursuits for the next 20 years. He has described the two years on the farm after his sister got married, his brother went off to join the Navy, and his mother passed away as the hardest of his life.

Dad spent the first nine years of his life in Northeast Minneapolis, after having been born in Pelican Rapids, Minnesota, in 1929. He remembered these early days fondly, mostly unaware of the great hardships stemming from the Great Depression. These humble beginnings no doubt contributed to Dad living such a remarkable life, one marked by compassion, curiosity, gratitude, generosity, and service to others.

If you wish, you can bolster Dad’s mission of supporting college students who are interested in the political sciences by making a memorial contribution to the Robert L. Rosholt Scholarship in Political Science that is administered by Luther College. Designate the name of the award or simply Robert Rosholt when using any of the channels Luther provides for making donations.

All are welcome to attend a celebration of Bob’s life at First Lutheran Church at 604 W. Broadway Street in Decorah, IA, on Saturday, June 18, 2022, at 1:00 PM. After the service, we will proceed to Lutheran Cemetery in Decorah for the inurnment of both Dad and Mom, followed by a light reception back at the church. Instructions for viewing the service will be found at the link below when they become available.

Link to primary source historical documents: https://bit.ly/rlr_history

Source: Helms Funeral Home database

Lutheran Decorah Cemetery
 

Winneshiek Obituaries maintained by Jeff Getchell.
WebBBS 4.33 Genealogy Modification Package by WebJourneymen