267. Robert Alexander Lewis, Jr., 1918-2008

My mother's mother's oldest surviving brother passed away today of a heart attack at a hospital in Frankfort. I have mentioned Uncle Bob Lewis on several occasions in past entries. He is one of the people, along with his older sister, my grandmother, and others, who instilled in me a desire to learn and read and appreciate the social sciences, among them politics, at a very young age. He gave me many books as a little boy, including The Complete Poetical Works of James Whitcomb Riley, a few poems of which I have passed along over time to the readers here along the Left Bank of the Ohio River near Milepoint 606.

Uncle Bob never married. He was a graduate of Pea Ridge School, Frankfort High School, and the University of Kentucky. As I recall, he was a member of Choateville Christian Church. He was an attorney and CPA, who was also a part of the "Lewis brothers" who were in and out of politics in Franklin County in the 1960s and 1970s. Uncle Bob served a term as Sheriff, before passing on that position to a distant cousin Ted Collins, who held the same post for several terms before being elected Franklin County Judge Executive in 2006.

For the past several years, Uncle Bob has been a resident of the nursing home out along US 127 South, just south of Louisville Road, on Frankfort's west side. He had become something of the life of the place traversing around on a motorised wheelchair, visiting all his co-residents on a regular basis.

While his funeral arrangements have not been made, most of my Frankfort relatives are buried from the Harrod Brothers Funeral Home in downtown Frankfort. He will be laid to rest amongst many of his (and my) relatives in the Sunset Memorial Gardens along Versailles Road just east of Frankfort.

He is the third of the children who survived infancy of my grandmother and her siblings to pass on, she, Vivian "Tommie" Lewis Hockensmith first in 1976, then my Uncle Henry in 1995. The rest are Frances C. Lewis Moore, Dorothy A. Lewis Henry, Lura E. Lewis Brown, and Jenny Lee Lewis Sharp; and Charles R. Lewis, William E. Lewis, Elbert E. Lewis, and Jimmy C. Lewis. With the exception of Jenny and Jimmy, all are residents of Franklin County.

Rest in Peace, Uncle Bob.