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MEMORIAL ARTICLE
Published Assembly May '94
Robert Carleton Key No.15469 Class of 1946
Died 16 October 1988 in Topeka, Kansas, aged 62 years. Interment:
Fort Sill National Cemetery, Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
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Robert Carleton (Bob) Key was born 16 August 1926
in McAlester, Oklahoma. At the time of Bob's birth, his father
was the warden of the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester.
A year later the family moved to Oklahoma City, where Bob spent
his childhood. His father gained national reputation as head
of the Oklahoma Works Progress Administration (WPA). Bob's mother
was the daughter of the last chief of the Seminole Nation. She
and her sister were the subject of a notation in Ripley's Believe
It or Not. Bob's father and his uncle were on the Mexican border
to fight Pancho Villa and were presented as "Captain Locke
and Captain Key, First Oklahoma Infantry" and the sisters
introduced as "Mrs. Locke and Mrs. Key." Bob's father
retired as an Army major general.
Bob graduated from Central High School in Oklahoma
City. An honor student, he thoroughly enjoyed participating in
class plays. He entered West Point directly from high school
and joined the class of 1946 on 1 July 1943. One of the youngest
members of the class, Bob was unfazed by the plebe system. He
had a unique ability to laugh at himself, which carried him through
the tough times. One of his roommates, Marty Colladay, recalled:
"I can't ever recall Bob being depressed like the rest of
us. His mind was disciplined, yet he loved practical jokes, humor
and good times. He was part actor. He loved to pantomime a la
Red Skelton. One skit had him playing two parts: a man on stage
trying to act and a man pushing him off. It was hilarious. He
was proud of his Oklahoma heritage and his parents. He was a
great roommate, especially during gloom period." Bob sang
in the Cadet Choir all three years and acted in each 100th Night
Show. When graduation rolled around, he became a second lieutenant
in the Field Artillery, his father's branch.
Bob received basic Artillery schooling at Fort
Sill, Oklahoma, immediately following graduation. During Christmas
leave that year, he married Mavis Parker at Westfield, New Jersey,
on 23 December 1946. From Fort Sill, Bob and Mavis traveled to
Germany, where Bob was assigned to a Field Artillery battalion.
Upon their return to the States, the Keys first went to Fort
Bliss, Texas, for more schooling and then back to Fort Sill,
where Bob was a student and then an instructor at the Artillery
School. In 1954, the Keys moved to Alaska, where Bob was a battery
commander in the 450th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battalion. Bob
began to have physical problems and was sent to Brooke Army Hospital
at Fort Sam Houston, Texas. When he regained his health, he was
assigned to the G-2 Section, Fourth Army at Fort Sam Houston.
In 1958, he was assigned to Korea in the G-2 Section, Eighth
Army. When he returned to the States, Mavis joined him at Fort
Leavenworth, Kansas. There Bob was assigned as an instructor
at the Command and General Staff College. In 1961, he was retired
from the Army for physical disability.
Alter his retirement, Bob and Mavis settled in
Wichita, Kansas. A friend and classmate, Jack Paden, remembered
Bob and Mavis: "We were stationed together, off and on,
for the 10 years I was in the Army. We were very close during
those years and later, when I lived in Dallas and they in Kansas.
Their personalities melded together as one. Both were extremely
talented, and Mavis had a beautiful soprano voice. They were
a golden and happy couple. Bob always had a puckish sense of
humor, which Mavis reflected with hers. It's impossible to think
of one without the other. I will always think of them shining
with happy expressions and bubbling with good humor. Bob and
Mavis were a unit to which conventional things didn't apply."
Bob's aunt, Mrs. Allece Gerrard, remembered his
exuberance for life: "Two years before he died he invited
me to bring a friend and be their guests for the opera in Tulsa.
That night, on the way to the opera, Mavis wheeled Bob up a long
ramp to a second floor entrance to the auditorium. We enjoyed
the opera, and, after it was over and we approached the exit
ramp, Bob called out to Mavis, who was manning his wheelchair,
'Let go, Mavis!' Startled, she did. Bob gave the wheels of his
chair a hard forward whirl and away he went, whizzing down the
long ramp in the wheelchair, laughing all the way. The people
below looked up and the people behind looked down, and everybody
was laughing with the joyful blond man in the wheelchair."
Bob Key died on 16 October 1988. He was survived
by Mavis; two daughters, Mavis and Victoria; a son, Robert, Jr.;
his aunt, Mrs. Allece Gerrard; and eleven grandchildren.
Robert Carleton Key was proud to be a West Point
graduate. He loved the Army and was sorely disappointed when
he had to retire for physical reasons, but he approached the
rest of his life in the same manner he approached life at West
Point, with gusto and aplomb. All who knew and loved him miss
his bubbling personality. His family, friends and classmates
join in saying, "Rest in Peace, Bob."
Mavis Parker Key died 26 January 1990 and is interred
with him.
'46 Memorial Article Project and his family
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