Personality profile: Bob Palmer recalls 90 years in Loudonville, brush with Marion Motley

LOUDONVILLE − Combat soldier, super salesman, teacher and coach, memorable football player at both the high school and college level, park caretaker, father of four, and grandfather of 10.

All of these labels represent Bob Palmer, who will celebrate his 90^th birthday on Dec. 5.

Palmer was born in Loudonville in 1932, son of Bob and Josephine “Josie” Palmer.

They lived in a small house on South Jefferson Street that they shared with a blacksmith named Heffelfinger.

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“This was in the Depression, and it was not unusual for homes to be shared with businesses,” Palmer recalls. “Later, however, my dad purchased the house from Mr. Heffelfinger for just $5, and built a Sears Catalog house in its place. Before that happened, I remember the house having a dirt floor and pot-bellied stove. When it rained, I could see nails, made by the blacksmith, pushing up in the yard and driveway.”

The Palmer’s daughter, Lori, and husband Jim Campbell live in that house today, while Bob and wife Jolene long since have moved to their home on South Water Street.

Bob Palmer on 90 years of living in Loudonville

Growing up in Loudonville in the Depression was an adventure.

One day while he and another boy were riding double on a bicycle, they were hit by a car. Bob suffered a fractured skull and was rushed to the hospital by the Flxible ambulance.

“I always thought that ambulance was the neatest vehicle, yet I got to ride in it while I was unconscious. I don’t remember a thing.”

In junior high school, he remembers the Cleveland Browns fielding a basketball team that came to Loudonville to play a basketball team sponsored by the Flxible.

“Noel Shaffer, a new teacher then, was in charge of the game and sent me to the locker room to tell the Browns it was time for the game to start,” Palmer reminisced. “I walked into the locker and faced Marion Motley, who said to me ‘what do you want, Bub?’ I looked at him. He had thighs as big as tree trunks, and scared me to death. I ran back out.”

Another memory is getting a job at the Ford Garage washing cars.

“They got a contract to wash new buses for the Flxible Co., and I was summoned to go to the plant and drive a bus to the garage, despite the fact that I was just 13 and unlicensed. A guy at the plant showed me how to put the bus in gear, and I successfully drove it to the garage, but I couldn’t pull it into the wash bays. The mirrors on the side of the bus stuck out too far to pull it in.”

Finally figuring out how to turn the mirrors in, he said, he began washing the bus, “climbing on its top to wash the roof with a broom. Suddenly, the roof popped down, like I put a big dent in it. Fortunately, a guy from the plant came out and took his fist and popped the roof back out. I was relieved.”

Bob Palmer was a 180-pound, 6-foot-4-inch football player for the Redbirds

There were other small-town adventures, like hitchhiking to Round Lake to go swimming, and learning to swim at O’Dell’s Lake.

He worked a job at the flour mill where co-workers developed a conveyor belt so he wouldn’t have to carry heavy bags of flour from the bagging machine to trucks or rail cars.

While Bob and his family were poor, he was big, and thus became a critical part of the Redbirds football teams. He and classmate John Gardner were the two biggest players on the team at 180 pounds, but Bob was a more imposing figure at 6 feet, 4 inches.

The team played its games then in the flat area behind the old high school (now Budd School) that now is the site of the McMullen Elementary School (built in 1953). As a senior, he and the Redbirds on the 1949 football team completed the first undefeated season in Loudonville High history.

That was the peak of his high school glory. Despite his height, he was kicked off the basketball team.

“We were running down the court and somebody yelled at me ‘hit him,’ which I did, knocking a teammate to the floor,” he remembered.

He also, because of lack of funds, did not participate in a school tradition, the senior class trip to New York.

After graduating in 1950, he worked three different jobs, at the flour mill, Nickles Bakery, and Mansfield Tire, and then joined the U.S. Army.

“What I did was volunteer for the draft, which means I would only serve for two years, as opposed to a four-year enlistment,” he said. He did his basic training a Camp Breckinridge, in western Kentucky near Evanston, Indiana, and after basic, was sent directly to fight in the Korean War.

College student, football player, dad and bread winner

He fought in a combat unit for nearly two years, in the process earning two Bronze Stars and a number of other medals as part of the 101st Airborne Division.

“While many in the Airborne jumped, I ran most of the time,” he said, “many times carrying a machine gun.”

He said he joined the Army on a whim. “I got in a big fight with my girlfriend, from Mansfield, and signed up,” he smiled.

Back home in 1954, he enrolled at then-Ashland College on the GI Bill, where the football coach, Bob Brownson, recognized him as a foe from Loudonville when he coached at New London. Brownson drafted Palmer for the Eagles football team, and he played for four years, including one undefeated season, on teams Ashland legend calls “The Hungry Hounds.” Also on the team were Redbirds Jack Augenstein and Tom Ellis, along with Marion “Shine” Zody, who played for the Perrysville Admirals six-man team.

While at college he met and married Jolene, who was a student at the Samaritan Hospital School of Nursing.

“We got married right after I completed nursing school, in September, during football season,” she noted.

While he played football, Bob had to work while at Ashland College, sometimes holding two jobs to make ends meet. He and Jolene had two of their four children while he was a student.

After graduating in 1958, he landed a sales job at a Pontiac dealership in Ashland.

“One day I drove to the Tappan Company in Mansfield to try to sell them Pontiacs for their sales cars, as at the time they were driving other cars. I didn’t sell them any Pontiacs, but on my second visit, the Tappan folks offered me a job with their sales force.”

With Tappan, he traveled all over the U.S. doing sales and service work. He was with the company for four years before deciding to get into teaching. He was hired in 1962 at New London, teaching sixth grade and coaching football.

Four years later he was hired at Loudonville, where he taught for 28 years, mostly junior high science and physical education. He retired in 1990.

While teaching, he started working for the village of Loudonville as caretaker of Riverside Park, taking care of the park, which was just behind his backyard, like it was an extension of his own yard. He started this job in 1969, and is not sure just when he retired from it.

The Palmers have four children and 10 grandchildren. Son Randy is now retired but had his own business, Rybolt, which sold fasteners. He lives in Bellville.

Mike (wife Patty) is retired from Wooster Brush Co., where he worked in the human resources office.

Lori (Jim) lives in Loudonville, and Lori is a graphic designer for Truax Printing.

And Jim (Aimee) is a logistics supervisor living in Oconomowoc (near Milwaukee), Wisconsin.

All three of the Palmer boys played football for the Loudonville Redbirds, and Jim went on to play tight end for the Ohio State Buckeyes.

Bob Palmer’s birthday will be celebrated at a luncheon with coffee and cake from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 25, in meeting room B at the Loudonville Public Library. Friends may call after 1 p.m.

RSVP by contacting Jim or Aimee Palmer at 262-424-7427, or email james85palmer@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on Ashland Times Gazette: Loudonville's Bob Palmer turns 90: Soldier, salesman, teacher & coach