Robert W. SKELTON

SKELTON, TACKITT, GRIFFIN, MCCORMICK, BLOCK

Posted By: Sarah Thorson Little (email)
Date: 3/15/2014 at 13:52:13

December 23, 1921 --- March 10, 2014

Robert W. "Bob" Skelton died in Cloverdale on March 10 at age 92, unable to recover from a brief and unexpected illness.

Born in Eagle Grove, Iowa, to Frank and Ethel Skelton, he was preceded in death by a younger brother, Max, and an older sister, Velva Tackitt. Bob enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps on Nov. 12, 1941. After Boot Camp, he was sent to the South Pacific and assigned to the USMC Correspondents' team "Last to know, First to go" as a photographer and cinematographer. Wounded by shrapnel in a Japanese air attack, he was awarded the Purple Heart in September of 1943. Returning to San Francisco from Nanumea on a hospital ship for rehab, he discovered San Francisco.

He had a successful 45-year-career as a commercial photographer and was the owner of Skelton Photography, once located at 272 Main St., a building he personally designed and had built. The building was recently torn down to make room for San Francisco's new Transbay Transit Center.

He is survived by his wife of 49 years, Judy, daughter Susan Griffin (Ralph McCormick), sons Robert (Jackie) and Clay (Meg Block), six grandchildren, three great grandchildren, numerous nieces, nephews and a few cousins.

Bob lived life to the fullest with hobbies that included flying airplanes, amateur radio, hunting, target shooting, fishing, traveling, photographing his prized roses and volunteering for historical societies and Northern California State Parks. An excellent cook, he was particularly famous for his Cioppino which served 16 at Christmas.

At his request, no service will be held. Donations in Bob's memory may be made to the Cloverdale Historical Society, 215 N. Cloverdale Blvd., Cloverdale, CA 95425. Arrangements are under the direction of Fred Young Funeral Home, Cloverdale.

San Francisco Chronicle - CA
March 16, 2014

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Cloverdale veteran Robert Skelton dies at 92

By CHRIS SMITH
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT

Robert Skelton, a former Iowa boy who went to war in the South Pacific as a Marine in 1942 and took most of his shots with a bulky camera, died Monday at age 92. The combat photographer was awarded a Purple Heart for serious injuries that permanently impaired his mobility but did not impede his post-war career in commercial photography. He built studios for Skelton Photography on San Francisco’s Main Street in 1965. Over the following quarter century he employed as many as 16 photographers and produced images for clients such as Gump’s, Standard Oil, U.S. Steel and Southern Pacific Railroad.

Skelton and his wife of 49 years, Judy, settled in Sonoma in 1989 and relocated to Cloverdale in 2000. Right up to his death following a brief illness, he shot photos prized by Sonoma County people — most recently, vibrant pictures of roses.

Throughout Cloverdale’s Del Webb retirement development, neighbors looked forward to Skelton stopping by as he wheeled about on his red electric scooter, a bright orange cap on his head.

“He always liked people so much,” Judy Skelton said. “People always liked him.”

Robert W. Skelton was born in 1921 in Eagle Grove, Iowa, and as a child was intrigued by photography. With war looming in the fall of 1941, he struck upon a plan to enlist and request enrollment in photography school at Naval Air Station Pensacola.

However, his wife recalled, “He didn’t want to join the Navy because he didn’t like the white hats.” So Skelton enlisted in the Marines, knowing that Leathernecks trained at Pensacola, too. But he was still in boot camp in San Diego when the Japanese Navy’s attack on U.S. forces in and near Pearl Harbor drew the country abruptly into the war. Skelton was shipped to the islands of American Samoa. There, a bit of good luck led to an encounter with a Marine Corps camera crew unfamiliar with the operation of a particular camera. Skelton pitched in and promptly was assigned to their unit as a photographer. Much of his work involved shooting areas of Pacific islands deemed suitable for the construction of air strips. Judy Skelton said he also took beautiful shots of native people and villages.

In the fall of 1942, Skelton photographed flying ace Eddie Rickenbacker following his rescue 24 days after he and the crew of a B-17 Flying Fortress ditched at sea. The following year, the war ended for Skelton in an excruciating and terrifying moment. He was on Nanumea in the Ellice Islands when Japanese planes launched an attack. Shrapnel struck him and lodged in his spine, temporarily paralyzing him. In time he was loaded onto the hospital ship USS Solace and delivered to Vallejo’s Mare Island Naval Hospital. He was treated and rehabilitated there for six months. “He had to learn to walk again,” Judy Skelton said. Once he was back on his feet, Skelton was discharged. Deciding to stay in the Bay Area, he looked for a job as a photojournalist but was deemed unsuitable because he walked with difficulty and that was physically demanding work.

So he turned to commercial photography, hiring on at San Francisco’s Gabriel Moulin Studios as a print maker. “It didn’t take him long to get into his own business,” his wife said. Bob Skelton operated his successful Skelton Photography until 1989. Upon retiring that year and moving with his wife from Corte Madera to Sonoma, he continued to do work for a few clients, including the California State Automobile Association. He also shot photos and videos for the California State Parks and the Sonoma League for Historic Preservation, and after moving to Cloverdale became active in that town’s historical Society.

Beyond photography and history, Skelton savored fishing, cooking, target shooting and flying small planes. At the time of his death he was looking forward to a visit to the great-granddaughter born recently in Washington, D.C. The child will come to know him from the stories and pictures he left.

In addition to his wife and the new baby, Skelton is survived by his daughter, Susan Griffin of Woodland; sons Robert Skelton of San Diego and Clay Skelton of Cloverdale, six grandchildren and two other great-grandchildren. There will be no services. His family suggests memorial contributions to the Cloverdale Historical Society, 215 N. Cloverdale Blvd., Cloverdale, CA 95425.

Press Democrat - Santa Rosa, California
March 14, 2014