He is preceded in death by his birth parents; Perry and Jane Singleton Pemberton; his adoptive parents, George and Amy Hillman Robb; sisters, Alice Robb, Shirley Pemberton Albert, and Betty Ann Robb MacMillan; and brothers, Hugh Wayne Robb and Glenn Pemberton.
His is survived by his wife of 74 years, Maxine Eloise Hoskins Robb of Lake Jackson, Texas; son, Michael Robb and his wife Sharon of Scribner, NE; daughter Patti Snyder and her husband Roland of Lake Jackson, TX; son James Robb of Woodbridge, VA; many grandchildren, great-grandchildren, nieces, and nephews and one great-great grandchild.
Dwight was a curious person; he always wanted to know how things worked. At the age of 12, he read a book about building crystal radios, and then built one. He took it to school and got a desk by the window so he could hook his antenna to the radiator. He put his ear bud in and proceeded to listen to the World Series. Not having seen a crystal radio before, it took a while for the teacher to figure out what was going on. Then, of course, everyone wanted to know what the score was.
A few years later, rural Scoot County, IA was getting electricity. Dwight read up on the subject and was about the most knowledgeable person for miles around on this newfangled 120 volt, 60 cycle electricity. Dwight, being the kind hearted coal he was, helped many farmers safely bring electricity onto their farms and put it to use.
When WWII started, Dwight was drafted into the Army. He rode the Queen Mary to England on her first voyage under US command and overfilled with GI’s. Years later he took his family to visit the Queen at her berth in Long Beach, CA and showed them his assigned bunk. That was the first time Dwight had ever talked about any of his experiences in the war with his family. In years after that, he would talk about some of his good memories, cooking for the “Guy’s,” driving on the Red Ball Express, visiting Paris, his time in England before D Day.
On D Day plus one, Dwight went across the beach at Normandy as a member of Battery C of the 552nd AAA Battalion. He was assigned to a water cooled 50 caliber machine gun crew and that was his job for the rest of the war. He earned five Battle Stars during the wat and then spent six months in occupied Germany before he was brought home and honorably discharged. Not long after Dwight got back to Iowa, he married his sweetheart, Eloise, and they soon started a family.
Dwight and Eloise bought a farm in Scott County, IA to raise their young family on. Dwight worked at Alcoa on night shift and on the farm on day shift. He raised pedigree polled Herefords that would come when he called them and white-tailed deer that would just ignore him because they knew he wouldn’t’ hurt them. Dwight had an amazing touch with animals; they could just sense that he was not a threat. He had a flock of over 50 Whistling Ducks that would come to feed in his Lake Jackson backyard. If he took out a bucket of feed, the ones on the ground would move away a little, but they wouldn’t fly away.
Dwight was a 70 year member of the IBEW. He started working for Alcoa Aluminum helping to build the rolling mill in Davenport, IA. After construction, he worked in the plant he helped build for over 25 years as a plant electrician. To this day, “Robbie” storied are still being told at the Davenport Alcoa plant. He was that kind of person; remarkable, memorable, a better friend could not be found.
Visitation will be held Saturday, August 15th from 1:00-2:00pm at The Runge Mortuary & Crematory. A Graveside Service will be held Saturday, August 15th at 2:00pm at the Davenport Memorial Park. Online condolences may be expressed at www.rungemortuary.com.
