Robert (Bob) Abell

Robert (Bob) Abell, 82, of Galena, died on Sat­ur­day April 21, 2012. He was born on Sep­tem­ber 26, 1929, in Ash­land, Ohio, to Scott & Lynna Abell. A 1947 grad­u­ate of Belle­vue High School, he received his Bach­e­lor of Sci­ence in Mechan­i­cal Engi­neer­ing from Case Insti­tute in Cleve­land in June 1951 and mar­ried the love of his life, Mary Lou, the same year.

Bob, a licensed Pro­fes­sional Engi­neer, spent most of his career as an aero­dy­namic and electro-mechanical engi­neer with North Amer­i­can Avi­a­tion (now Boe­ing), first as a test engi­neer at Edwards Air Force Base in Cal­i­for­nia. He was instru­men­tal in design­ing the T-2B and A3J-1 jets among oth­ers. Later he headed up a group of engi­neers design­ing autonomous mis­sile guid­ance sys­tems at the Colum­bus plant in the Mis­sile Sys­tems Divi­sion and then, in Duluth, Geor­gia, as a mem­ber of the Advanced Engi­neer­ing Tech­ni­cal Staff. He was always enthu­si­as­tic about solv­ing any tech­ni­cal problem.

A life­long sailor, Lieu­tenant Robert Abell, Senior Nav­i­ga­tor, was an active mem­ber of the United States Power Squadron (USPS), Colum­bus Sail and Power Squadron in a Full Cer­tifi­cate. Bob joined the USPS in 1969 and served 44 years with 42 merit marks. He taught courses in Sail, Nav­i­ga­tion and Cruise Plan­ning and was a co-author of the Cruise Plan­ning cur­ricu­lum still in use nationally.

As a mem­ber of the Great Lakes Cruis­ing Club, he and his lov­ing wife, Mary Lou, enjoyed many a sum­mer cruis­ing the Great Lakes on their 35-foot wooden Choey Lee sloop sail­boat, Miss Conduct.

Bob will be greatly missed by his Ham Radio bud­dies on the “Turkey Net”, KE8BS 73’s & 88’s. His other hob­bies included ski­ing, ten­nis, wood­work­ing, met­al­work­ing, elec­tron­ics and more in his shop.

Bob lived life until the end and was not one to be told he couldn’t.

He is sur­vived by four chil­dren: Kath­leen (Michael) Ish­ler of Santa Mon­ica, Cal­i­for­nia; Daniel (Gwyneth) Abell of West­er­ville; Robert Abell of Grand Junc­tion, Col­orado; and Roger (Ellen) of Glouster, Ohio; two grand­chil­dren: Stephanie (Nate) Jakus and Matthew Ish­ler; as well as by brother Scott (Judy) Abell. He is pre­ceded in death by his wife Mary Lou in 2002.

A Memo­r­ial Mass will be read at St. Paul Catholic Church, 313 North State Street, West­er­ville, on Tues­day, May 8, at 10 a.m. where fam­ily will receive friends fol­low­ing the service.

In lieu of flow­ers, memo­r­ial con­tri­bu­tions may be made to the Mary Lou Abell Memo­r­ial Fund c/o the Mey­ers Inn His­tor­i­cal Build­ing, 44 Bur­rer Drive, Sun­bury, Ohio 43074.

Arrange­ments by the MORELAND FUNERAL HOME, Westerville.

Posted by Gary Henery on May 2 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.