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Upon graduation from Oberlin High School, I enlisted in the U.S. Navy at Traverse City, MI. I spent 20 years on active duty and retired as a Chief Yeoman in November, 1971, at Brunswick Naval Air Station, Brunswick, ME.
During my 20 years' active duty, I was assigned to various ships operating out of the east and west coasts, visiting ports in the Mediterranean Sea, the Pacific area, South Viet Nam and South Korea. Also, I had shore station assignments in San Diego, CA; Bainbridge, MD; Jacksonville, FL; and with the State Department in Washington, D.C. I also was assigned with an Amphibious Construction Battalion (SEABEES) in Coronado, CA and a Naval aircraft anti-submarine unit at Brunswick, ME. Upon retirement, I moved to the suburbs of Washington, D.C. (northern VA) where I had a residential remodeling company for 20+ years.
Married 1954; divorced 1971. Have 4 children from that marriage--Brenda, Kathleen, Marie, and Robert, Jr--all presently residing in the Jacksonville, FL area. Married Janet Neblett in 1971, and have 2 step-children--Mark and Dana. Janet retired 4 years ago after 34+ years with the U.S. Government, 30 with the Criminal Investigation Command of the U.S. Army.
For 20 years I was active coaching in girls' fast-pitch softball, progressing through my step daughter's teen years to positions as assistant coach at local high schools and a Washington, D.C. university.
In 1996 I was forced to slow down and to curtail my coaching duties due to medical reasons. As of the OHS '52 reunion date, I will have surpassed my sixth anniversary of battling cancer and at present am a subject of ongoing clinical tests with experimental vaccines sponsored by the National Institutes of Health and the Lombardi Cancer Center at Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, D.C.
ROBERT HARLEY BEESE--Obituary, Washington Post
Navy Veteran and Contractor
Robert Harley Beese, 67, who retired from the Navy in the early 1970s as a chief yeoman and then was a home improvement contractor and softball coach, died of cancer June 30, 2002 at his home in Gainesville.
Mr. Beese was a native of Elyria, Ohio, who served in the Navy for 20 years, largely on ships. He was assigned to the naval support unit at the State Department in the late 1960s and retired from an assignment with an air squadron in Brunswick, Maine.
He operated Anchor Maintenance Co. in Vienna before retiring again in the early 1990s.
Mr. Beese, a former resident of Vienna and Herndon, was a youth commissioner for the Washington Area Amateur Softball Association. He founded and coached the Cameos, a girls fast-pitch softball team that played in a Fairfax County league and in games elsewhere in the country for 25 years. He also assisted girls softball teams at Herndon and Langley High schools.
His marriage to Lillian Beese ended in divorce.
Survivors include his wife of 31 years, Janet Arnold Beese of Gainesville; four children from his first marriage, Brenda Hutchinson, Kathleen Dykes,Robert Beese Jr., and Marie Miles, all of Jacksonville, FL; two stepchildren, Mark Neblett of Fairfax and Dana Tuck of Leesburg; a halfbrother and nine grandchildren.
Janet Beese's email address is beese@starpower.net