Robert "Bob" Porter
Graveside services for Robert “Bob” Porter, who died Nov. 25, 2009, in Yuma, Ariz., will be held Monday, June 14, at 11 a.m. at the IOOF Cemetery in Bickleton .
Bob was born June 19, 1923, in Sunnyside, the youngest of 11 children born to Will and Ada Lewis Porter. According to a newspaper article, he was the youngest person in the Ford Day Parade, June 20, riding in a Ford Coupe the day after he was born.
Bob and his close friend Bob Simmons joined the U.S. Navy four days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and served until World War II was over. He returned to live in Richland working as a guard at Hanford.
He and Gloria Gregson were married March 9, 1946, and later divorced. They had one son Greg.
Bob moved to Renton in 1953. He and Edith I. Mains, a teacher from Bickleton, were married Feb. 26, 1954, in Seattle. He worked in security for the Boeing Company , operated a Chevron station in Renton for many years and later an Exxon station in Kent until he retired in 1988.
He and his wife “Edie” purchased a home in Yuma, Ariz., in 2002, spending winters there.
He is survived by his wife of 56 years, Edie; son Greg of Gold Bar; granddaughter Darcy and her two children Emily and Parker White of Georgia; grandson Christian of Snohomish; and sister Mae James of Spokane.
Sisters and brothers who preceded him in death are Murble, Henry, John, Marguerite Rogers, Howard, Molly Wilcox, Jewel Rasmusson, William and Clarence, and numerous nieces and nephews.
