Obituary of Robert Louis Parsons

Robert Louis Parsons, 99, died September 18 in Auburn, Maine, with family at his side from prostate cancer. A morning service is set for August 16, 2025 at Park United Presbyterian Church in Streator, Illinois.

Born December 25, 1924, in Lewiston, Maine, to Irene and William, Robert grew up on the Parsons farm under the watchful eye of Mount Abram in East New Portland, Maine, where he graduated from the Pines and Central High School in 1942, a year after the death of his father.  He entered the United States Army at age 18 at Skowhegan Courthouse escorted by surrogate father, Harry Jones. Bob trained at Chanute Field, Rantoul, Illinois. He served at Peterson Field, Colorado Springs, and Pierre, South Dakota Air Force Base, before deployment via troop ship to Bengal and Calcutta, India, where he serviced teletype machines. Next, the 1946 home cruise via the Suez Canal ferried him to springtime apple bloom off Connecticut. Bob enrolled in 1947 under the G.I. bill at the University of Maine. In 1951, just before medical school, the best blessing of Bob’s adult life occurred when he was seated next to Beverly in composition class. She saw past worn fatigues and G.I. boots, recognized Bob as a soul mate as he courted her to Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet,” and married him in 1953.  After his 1955 graduation from Harvard Medical School, they went west with infant Betsy for Bob’s internal medicine and cardiology residency at Chicago Presbyterian Hospital. In 1959, after the birth of Bill, Sarah, and Susan, Bob was recruited by Dr. Fred Munson to join the Streator (Illinois) Medical Clinic. Attracted to the high caliber of clinic staff and the mission to provide best medical care to people of modest means, he and Bev moved to Central Illinois, where black-loam farmland must have appeared as an Eden to a man raised on a woods farm in western Maine. The youngest child, Scott, was born in Streator. Bob particularly relished making house calls and driving into the country with his children. Later, both Betsy and Scott emigrated to Maine where family vacations had been held. 

Bob loved books, maps, medicine, music and the natural world. He would converse intelligently about nearly anything with anyone, including his beloved patients, whom he helped for 55 years.  An exceptional physician and teacher, Bob was blessed by medicine, and medicine was blessed by him. For both him and Beverly, work was “love made visible.” He retired only because Streator’s St. Mary’s Hospital went before he did, and moved to Greencastle, Indiana, where he and Bev created new friendships for seven years.

Bob moved back to Maine in 2023 to Hallowell’s Granite Hill Estate, where he made friends despite lingering sorrow over the loss of his beloved Bevie (d. 2022) and daughter Betsy (d. 2019). He had time, though, to revisit the landscape of his youth. He took the road to Kingfield traveled each Christmas by sleigh, pulled by the family horse, Tango, to Aunt Flo, who waited with warm molasses cookies in her apron. He traveled the 40 miles to Rangeley Lakes from the Parsons home (over Maine’s Appalachians), this time, by car, that he had bicycled each summer to help his mother clean cabins and keep the family afloat.  

Besides his wife and oldest daughter, Bob was preceded in death by his parents, William and Irene, and brother Philip. He will be dearly missed by children: William of Seattle; Sarah of Seattle; Susan of Bayside, Calif. (Stuart); and Scott of Belgrade, Maine (Michele); grandchildren: Alisa (Jesse), Daniel (Eva), Sasha (Sarah), Katie Rose, Benjamin, Greta Lou, and Ming Claire; great-grandchildren: Ruben, Josiah, and Rafael; and nieces: Sheila, Sherry; nephews, Bryan, Jay; and great and great-grand nieces and nephews. 

Bob once said that a perfect day was trout fishing at Shin Pond. As a veteran, he was most grateful for defending and growing up in an egalitarian society. In later years, he carried copies of “The Constitution” and Judge Learned Hand’s “Spirit of Liberty” to give to people. He gave every ounce of strength to family, community, and country for as long as he could. “Say not in grief ‘he is no more’ but in thankfulness that he was.” (Hebrew Proverb.) In celebration of Bob’s life, please consider memorial gifts to:

   Streator Public Library: https://www.streatorpubliclibrary.org/donations

   Streator’s Park United Presbyterian Church

   Parsons Scholarship Fund for LGBTQ+ Youth and Allies: https://www.mainecf.org

Memories and condolences may be shared at www.directcremationofmaine.com