Robert Edwin Woodyatt

Bob was quite strange, even more so then myself. After being discharged from the army with a medical discharge during World War II, he always carried himself with a rigid, very straight as a stick miltary posture. He always used perfect grammer, and his speech was clipped somewhat reminiscent of an old school Oxford English accent. He had an excellent dry ironic sense of humor that he weilded unmercyfully.

No one knows what really happened to Bob in the military except that he came out very bitter about the experience, His left hand was always covered with a black leather glove and it was extremely hard and rigid which led me to believe it was made of steel. No one in the family knew for sure, He refused to speak of the matter.

He received a degree in Chemical Engineering from the Illinois Instinute of Technology and Married Jane Frigo who gave birth to his only daughter Marlyn Roberta Woodyatt. The marriage wass short lived.

He worked as a chemical engineer at such firms as Armor Meat Packing and Sunkist until his love for the demon rum (actually beer ) caused him lose these jobs. For awhile he worked as a bartender at Nino's tavern. I stayed at his apartment for a short period of time. All his friends thought we were twins but then most of them were drunks, losers and not too bright. When I was 15 years old, I filled in for him as bartender when he landed a position with the MOB as a bag-man for the numbers racket.

He would go to various taverns, lay his 38 caliber chrome revolver where eveyone could see it along with the "bag" on the bar. The owner would place the money and days receits in the bag. Bob would finish making his rounds and deliver the bag to the mob bosses picking up his pay for his day's work. It paid much better then what he could steal from a bar working as a bartender.

Bartender were expected to steal from the bar owners, but there was a code and limit as to how much you could steal. He tried to explain it to me, but it was too complicated so I refrained from doing so when I was filling in for him. Well! maybe I did a little. One thing you did not do was steal from the MOB!

One of my best friends in Sterling told me a story about Bob I just love. Bob was having a drink at the Moose when he was confronted by a well known town bully, a huge brute of man who shall remain unnamed. What Bob did was snap to attention saluted, and performed a perfect about-face and marched out of the Moose. This confounded the dumb brute and the bully had no clue as to what to do next.

Later that evening Bob went to the American Legion for a drink. Upon entering, he noticed the same bully quite drunk at the far end of the bar giving the bartender ( who happened to be our brother Whitey a hard time ). He again snapped to attention and marched smartly to the end of the bar retreiving a half empty bottle of beer from another patron along the way. He came up behind the brute unnoticed and cold-cocked him with the bottle.

The police were called. Bob and Whitey bought them drinks and the brute woke up in jail. This Bully wasn't all that dumb. He never ever bothered a Woodyatt again.