GOODBYE BOB HOPWOOD, WHEREVER YOU ARE
HERE’S THE OBITUARY, IN TODAY’S WHIG STANDARD……..
HOPWOOD, Robert Frank Queen’s Emeritus Professor of History Veteran of the Korean War With deep sadness the family announces Robert’s passing at Rideaucrest Home in Kingston, November 9, 2006, at the age of 77. Devoted husband to Jolene for 35 years and wonderful father to Tobin, a gift to both late in Robert’s life. He was blessed with the love and affection of his children from his previous marriage to Susan Sylvester, Michael, Page (Green) and Ky. Despite the enormous obstacle of distance they were with him through life and at the end. Joining them in their sorrow are partners Beth, Frank and Hueii, and grandchildren Kellen, Bo, Quinn, Nicole, Caitlyn, Kevin, Yamuna, and Preeta. Greatly missed by his sister Barbara Douglas and by Dick Meyer, husband to Robert’s late sister Lesley, as well as Alice Meyer Wallace, all with whom countless happy holiday moments were shared. Fondly remembered by Jolene’s sister Deborah Burnett, and brother Joseph Goodier (Margaret) and their families. After receiving his Phd at Stanford in 1964 Robert moved to Canada to begin his 30 year career teaching German history. He treasured his association with Queen’s and his life in the unique Edgehill neighbourhood. An athletic gentleman, he was passionate about skiing, body-surfing, noon-time basketball, and his beloved Raptors . Though he would rather be walking the dog, or reading, he affably laboured, as needed, on Jolene’s endless garden projects. Typical of his practical nature, he adapted without complaint to the series of health problems that greeted his retirement in 1995 , including the ultimate challenge of Alzheimer’s. His great sense of humour was eventually silenced by his deteriorating condition and loss of language, but he continued to experience joy because of the love and creativity of the remarkable staff at both the Hildegarde Centre’s Day Programme at Providence Manor, and Rideaucrest’s Garden Walk Terrace Alzheimer Wing where Bob has lived since February. If considering memorial donations, support for these programmes would be greatly appreciated by the family. In the spring family and friends will be invited to celebrate his life by gathering in Rockport, an area Bob adored, and where Jolene and Tobin now reside.
And here is the remembrance, written a couple of days later………excuse typos please.
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Well, it is time to say farewell to one of the greatest noontime basketball players in the history of Queen’s University’s Bartlett, Bews, and Ross Gymnasiums. Bob played in them all, and he played hard and well, being one of the few Stanford grads in Canada ever to show the ability to shoot from both the right and left sides of the basket. And could he put in the hook shot! No one has seen that shot now for at least thirty years but in his heyday Bob could sink the shot at will.
We shall miss his athletic competitiveness, combined with his sweet nature, which propelled him to become a star third-basemen for Queen’s exceptional summer baseball teams during the 1970s. He and colleague George Rawlyk were known for their unbelievable power hitting — Hopwood once hit three home runs in one game on the west campus diamond, each time the left fielder backing up on him, each time the ball sailing well over the left fielder’s head. “You should hit to right,” Rawlyk said with a straight face after the last homer. Hopwood, known affectionately as “Hoppy” to his close associates, also played a mean third base for Sweet’s Corners, up around Seeley’s Bay, into the early 1980s–he was by far, despite Rawlyk’s continuous demurrers, the top athletic specimen in a department known for its physical flab (one of our colleagues, not one of Bob’s favourites, lived across the street from the parking lot north of Watson Hall, and, yes, he drove his car to work, to Bob’s utter mystication and delight). Bob had pecs and what kids today call a “six-pack,” long before the term became pop culture and beer-ad parlance.
Bob also anchored the intellectual fulcrum on the second floor, west end, of Watson Hall. When I arrived way back in 1969, he already had been present, teaching German history, for some time. He, and Rawlyk, were early mentors, and Bob never tired of talking about the importance of popular culture in understanding the emergence of Hitler and the Nazis–he knew a great deal about Weimar, about the transition that led ultimately to WWII, and about German science, medicine, and technology. There was a time, indeed, that several of us expected to see a Graf Zeppelin anchored on the roof of Watson Hall. His students loved his ability to recreate the crash of the Hindenberg during lecture.
Bob Hopwood had a playful side as well. He was a straight-faced practical joker, who on occasion bamboozled everyone. While grad chair in the late 1970s, I received across my desk an application for admittance to the Queen’s PhD program of one Alexander “Red” Mihailovich, a mature student, with an academic background in the Soviet Union and several satellite states. Inasmuch as I was attempting at the time to rebuild the Queen’s basketball team, the fact that Mihailovich had eligibility and was as well 6-10 and 275 lbs. made my eyes brighten immediately. In the end, there was no Mihailovich. Hopwood had compiled the entrance dossier, together with three glowing letters of recommendation, himself. I sent the dossier back to him, because Mihailovich had noted that he wanted German and Russian history, as well as Irish and Canadian colonial. Two other colleagues got the file–George Rawlyk, the chair, and Don Akenson, our Irish specialist. Rawlyk sniffed out the ruse immediately and laughed for days. Akenson took the file seriously, and wrote, “watch out for this one, dangerous.” So the non-existent Red Mihailovich ended up not getting into Queen’s, despite the fact that Hopwood tried to convince Akenson that he was a student as well as a baskethall player.
We’ll remember Bob for his friendliness, his ability to laugh at himself as well as others, his commitment to Jolly and Tobin (and his several dogs), and the joy he carried with him when returning from the New Jersey shore and a session of body surfing.
A final note–while serving in the U.S. military in the late 1940s, he was the front part of an honour-guard, carrying a rifle with bayonet, that was ordered to advance just as President Harry S Truman was moving backward toward the unit. Bob’s bayonet stayed poised, as President Truman backed into it.
At ease, Bob.