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Robert S Brown, age 79, passed away on August 7, 2022 as a result of a stroke suffered in April. He was preceded in death by his mother Shirley Smock Brown and his father Jacob William Brown. He is survived by his five children: Jason, Adam (Tess), Jane, Alexandra, and Nicholas; one granddaughter Rhonda; and by his sisters Barbara Hild (Guy), Deborah Cummins (James) and Penny Brown. He is also survived by his loving and devoted companion Doreen Beatrice.
Robert is a 1960 graduate of Walnut Hills High School, received a BA degree from UC in 1964, and a JD degree from the University of Cincinnati College of Law in 1967 where he served on the Editorial Board of the Law Review. He received an LLM degree in taxation from New York University College of Law in 1968. He was a part-time faculty member of UC Law School for many years teaching corporate taxation.
In 1972 Robert was elected to serve on the Cincinnati Board of Education during a time when race and segregation became forefront issues. In voting for an unpopular plan of integration, he was quoted in the Enquirer as stating “In terms of the future, unless we are able to live in a truly integrated society, society won’t hold together at all.” Robert was also a past officer of the Community Action Commission, and a past board member of Camp Livingston, and the Contemporary Arts Center, past president of HOME (Housing Opportunities Made Equal), and the year 2000 recipient of the biennial Charles P. Taft Civic Gumption Award.
In his practice of law, Robert was scholarly, compassionate and effective in guiding his clients along the legal pathways. He possessed strength of character, and respected a worthy opponent, and was himself one.
A private cremation has taken place. A celebration of Robert’s life will be held for family and friends on Sunday, August 28th, 2:00-5:30 p.m., at Bar le Boeuf, 2200 Victory Parkway, with remembrances being shared 3:00 p.m. If you would like to be included, email your name and cell phone contact to nick@brownlawohio.com. https://www.weilkahnfuneralhome.com/obituaries/Robert-Brown-288/#!/Obituary
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Jon McEntyre
I really began to get to know Bob better, when I stuck around & played pool & drank Champaign w/ him & Bob Whitmire, after Bob hosted the brunch @ his house in Indian Hill at the conclusion of our Reunion in who remember when...! Later, I, of course, was friends w/ Tom Hyman, who went to Law school @ UC w/ Bob... Once I was talking w/ Bob & told him that all the guys in Law school said that he & Bob Whitmire were the smartest guys in the class, to which Bob replied, "By Far"...! I always loved that...! During my visits to Cincinnati, from my home in Corte Madera, just across the Golden Gate Bridge & 10 minutes up the 101 Freeway, I would contact Bob & often he would invite me over th his home, where his cook would prepare dinner, while we reminisced... I was able to visit him where he lived @ his remodeled former automobile building at Crntrak Parkway & Race Street, which he made into a fabulous place...!!! Just a couple of memories of my interaction that I had w/ a remarkable friend & firmer classmate...I wanted to share...! Blessings to his lovely partner, Doreen Beatrice...! May Bob Rest In Peace...after a life well lived...!!! Jon McEntyre
Ken Korey
Bob and I were seven when we met at summer camp, the two youngest boys there. He lived then in Richmond, OH on a remote farm up a dirt road, I lived in well-paved North Avondale. We soon became fast friends, together savoring the freedom and novelty of a world designed entirely for children. The exploration of Nature was our greatest preoccupation. His rural upbringing provided him what appeared to me an unending store of knowledge about the resident creatures thereabout -- snakes, turtles, crayfish, frogs, birds and whatever else we might encounter -- information authoritatively expounded and uncritically consumed. Our bunks adjoined, and I remember Bob shaking me awake one night to listen to the sound of an unfamiliar bird, repeated at regular intervals. It was a rare Nightbird, I was instructed, not often to be heard. We decided in that moment to adopt its call as our own, a private sign to signal our presence to one another, and in the coming days we practiced it assiduously.
The truth of the matter is that we never heard the Nightbird again that summer, so that the call we were rehearsing was readily subject to a form of random linguistic drift. Anyone who ever listened to Bob Brown trying to carry a tune -- usually consisting of him chanting lyrics in a monotone -- will understand the challenge we faced. Happily, his whistling skills exceeded his singing ability, so we eventually arrived at some arbitrary melody that we agreed was exactly that of the Nightbird. But if the Nightbird called out to us in the subsequent summers we shared at camp, offering us an opportunity for correction, we slept through its performance.
A few years later Bob and I found ourselves neighbors in North Avondale, living only three doors apart. Again the Nightbird could resume its concert as we brought it back to life. He would whistle out a summons, I would reply in kind, and the promises of hijinks were likely to follow. One nocturnal "exploit" (as he referred to them), involved slipping a long Roman candle with slow-burning fuse into the large howitzer fronting the American Legion Post on Reading Road, a stunt of which he was inordinately proud. We walked across the street to the park, took a bench and waited . . . until all hell broke loose, with fireballs raining down into the park and brakes screeching. And so on and so forth, until years later when we approximated something akin to responsible adulthood.
In the 60 years since that time our lives diverged, moving into separate directions only occasionally punctuated by a brief reunion or phone call. I quite regretted this state of affairs, never more than now. I've been fortunate to have lived in rural Vermont for the past 50 years, during which time I've learned something of the natural world myself. I listen each spring for the mating call of the whip-poor-will (our old Nightbird), coming to realize that the summer call we heard long ago was idiosyncratic, probably owing to some minor disturbance. But it is true that the bird has grown rare and that its call (which sounds surprisingly like the one we conjured up) has become scarce. Yet each time I hear it I feel a flash of excitement, imagining that it's Bob whistling again, calling me once more for fun.
Ed Wise
What a wonderful memorial tribute to a friend, Ken. And Jon, you too. I remember Bob as a friend and classmate, affable and very smart. You guys were lucky for the depth of your friendship.
Nancy Felson
Dear classmates,
I want to share a piece that my brother Steve wrote about Bob Brown and add a brief note about the friendship of our parents, Jake Brown and Ben Felson, who grew up together in the West End of Cincinnati. Jake was one of the speakers at my dad's public memorial in October 1988. In his talk, he reminisced about their pranks they would play and about entrepreneureal schemes he would develop and our dad would go along with. I wish I remembered the details. In any case, I remember Bob at WHHS as a good humored prankster, a challenger of authority. Only much later did Steve bring me to some exquisite events at Bob's house or in a restaurant. And during Steve's illness some years ago, Bob was extraordinarily helpful to my nephew Amit and to me. I hope some of the depth and warmth of the friendship comes through in Steve's writing below.
I'd love a report from those who are able to attend the funeral/memorial on the.28th of August.
Nancy Felson
Here, from my brother:
Our parents were close friends, and Bob was a year behind me at North Avondale, Walnut Hills, and UC Law School. But we only got to know each other well later in life, when I returned to the practice of law in Cincinnati in the early 1990s and Bob offered me a desk in his office so I could “warm up” for a year before going out on my own.
A few years later we started playing casual bridge at Bob’s Indian Hill home. Soon we developed a vague desire to actually learn the game. I was able to suppress mine, but for Bob, as with everything else in his life, the challenge grew until one day he produced two copies of “Bridge for Dummies.” Whither he went, I followed.
With Bob in charge we had to become Life Masters as fast as possible, which meant traveling to tournaments – from Gatlinburg to Toronto, from Indianapolis as far East as Anderson Township. Bob did the driving – also as fast as possible – while I closed my eyes and prayed in the language of my forefathers. And it worked – we always arrived safely, we played hard, and we earned those certificates.
There was also poetry. I regularly warned our bridge opponents never to mention any well-known work, such as Eliot’s “The Waste Land,” or we would have to postpone play while Bob recited it from memory. Even the bridge clock couldn’t stop him.
And, finally, the food. My normal daily consumption of sea urchin roe, caviar, and foie gras has always been minimal, but Bob’s dinner parties offered them in amounts sufficient to sink a small dolphin. I remember every bite, as well as “the rattle of the bones” in his speeding car and his “chuckle spread from ear to ear” at my plea for both of us to survive just a little bit longer.
Of course, Bob would have recognized these references immediately.
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Attorney at Law
220 Loraine Ave., Suite 2
Cincinnati, Ohio 45220
(513) 520-6348 (tel.)
stevef8953@gmail.com (email)
Joyce Leader
Nancy,
Thank you for your addition to our understanding of who Bob Brown was. I cannot help but mention, though, that what made me gasp was the address of your brother's law office: 220 Loraine Ave.. That is the 4-family apartment building my grandparents built--in the 1930's I think--where I grew up! My mother and her sister sold it in the 1970's after my grandfather died. Who knew that it had become a commercial building including a law office! And, that your brother would work there! What memories this unexpected discovery has evoked!
Best regards,
Joyce Leader