Robert J Conlon

Robert Joseph Conlon, husband, father, bird watcher and electrical engineer, died July 1, 2026. He was 96 years old. Bob grew up in Beaver, Pennsylvania, as the oldest of four siblings, Mary, Jerry and Mike. They lived in a home near the confluence of the Beaver River and the Ohio River and across the street from a sledding hill. As a kid, Bob thought the perfect day involved pickup baseball games with neighborhood kids in the vacant lot down the street, followed by a bath, and then reading travel adventure books on the front porch. In high school, he ran the mile in 5-minutes and 13-seconds. At Purdue University on the cross-country team, Bob ran the two-mile but his best finish was third place. Like his father, Bob earned his electrical engineering degree from Purdue. He picked that course of study because it had the most math. He was an A and B student and a champion procrastinator, a skill that he applied throughout his life. He met Elizabeth “Betty” Opitz on a blind date at Purdue. Bob temporarily left Purdue when he was drafted into the U.S. Army in 1952. Shortly after his basic training, Bob and Betty married in a small ceremony on Jan. 23, 1953. The couple honeymooned for one day and night in Chicago. They moved to St. Louis where Bob worked at the Army’s medical equipment repair school – the closest he ever got to the Korean War. He returned to Purdue to finish his studies. After Bob completed his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering, the couple moved to Columbus, Ohio where Bob started a job at Battelle Memorial Institute, a career that spanned decades and multiple projects. Betty and Bob had four children: Kevin, Peggy, Scott and Cynthia. Much to Bob’s dismay, none of them came with a user’s manual. “It changed my life because I had no idea how to be a parent. Made a lot of mistakes along the way,” he said in a 2025 interview. Much to Bob’s surprise, all four of their kids turned out pretty well. One of his favorite memories was weekly family dinners his adult children hosted because it gave him a chance to marvel in their successes. And because there was bacon. A word about Bob’s diet: trash. Toast for breakfast, a slider sandwich for lunch, maybe pepperoni pizza for dinner and ice cream for dessert. Not a fresh fruit, vegetable or salad in sight. Bob was a dedicated birder, acquiring a life list of more than 600. When asked his most joyful moment in life, Bob said it was finding and confirming his sighting of a juvenile Mississippi Kite at Highbanks Metro Park. When asked about the saddest time in his life, he said it was the loss of Betty, who died on May 29, 2010. They had been married for 57 years. Bob downsized from the house on Bowerman in Worthington, where they had raised their four children. In November 2012, he moved to an apartment at Wesley Glen where he joined, and often chaired, several committees, including Poems and Passages, Education, and Nature, worked crossword and jigsaw puzzles, made new friends and documented wildflowers, birds and butterflies on the property. He could recite from memory a long passage of The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe. Bob said wildflowers and butterflies replaced his love of birding, which he was no longer able to do extensively. His favorite butterfly: the Pearl Crescent, a little beauty not much larger than his thumbnail. For those who believe butterflies symbolize an ongoing connection and serve as a reminder that love changes form but does not end, it is worth noting that his granddaughter Liz sent him a photograph of a Pearl Crescent she came across on a walk shortly before he passed. Over his lifetime, Bob’s religion and politics shifted. Raised Catholic, he spent most of his adult life as a Lutheran. He found a connection with Art Haimerl, a charismatic pastor and close friend. Eventually, Bob acquired a distaste for organized religion because it mixed too closely with politics and telling others how to live. Bob started out as a Goldwater Republican but shifted to being a “flaming Democrat,” preferring how Democrats tried to help people, he said. When asked for words of wisdom for his future generations, Bob offered this: “Do what you love and have the wisdom to know what you love at the time.” When asked how he’d like to be remembered, he said: “As someone who didn’t screw up too badly.” Bob is preceded in death by his parents Robert and Catherine, his siblings Mary, Jerry and Mike, and his wife Betty. He is survived by his four children Kevin (and Terry) Conlon of North Carolina, Scott (and Celia) Conlon of Delaware, Ohio, Peggy Conlon of Worthington, and Cynthia (and Pete) MacKenzie of Worthington. Bob is grandfather to Kory, Elizabeth, Ryan and John Conlon, and Melanie and Samuel MacKenzie and great-grandfather to Brody Conlon and Avery MacKenzie Chang. Bob will be remembered during Wesley Glen’s Annual Memorial Service on Sunday, November 1, at 3pm; and a private service will be held by the family.

Robert J Conlon

March 22, 1930 - July 1, 2026