Robert William Wilkinson, native Angeleno and Glendale resident for over half a century, died at home Friday, January 20th. He was 93 years old.
Robert was born in Culver City in 1929, the only child of Harold and Georgia Wilkinson who came to Los Angeles from Williams, Iowa. Robert grew up in Altadena during grade school and moved to West Los Angeles in Junior High. As a teenager, he worked after school at his father’s grocery store, Friendly Mart, east of Beverly Hills in what is now West Hollywood. Nicknamed “Wilkie” by his friends, he enjoyed playing sports and running track in high school. He graduated from University High School in 1947.
Robert attended California Polytechnic State University at San Louis Obispo, where he studied architectural engineering. After college, he went to work for the Donald R. Warren engineering firm on Wilshire Boulevard. as a structural draftsman in 1950. In 1957, he joined the Ralph M. Parsons Company, where he worked for 37 years on a number of “top secret” engineering projects involving national security, including missile installations in Florida and the central U.S., retiring as a senior design supervisor in the structural section of the company which focused on missile launch facilities, rocket test stand facilities, as well as other commercial, industrial and institutional assignments. He found his work challenging and interesting, often telling his family that it was nice to be a part of something useful in the world.
He met his wife of 65 years, the late Mary Wilkinson, neé Evans, at a downtown Los Angeles bowling alley in the early ’50s and they were married on November 26th, 1955. Robert traded in his loud, cloth-top MG Roadster two-seater (that Mary could hear coming blocks away) for a respectable family car, a 1956 Ford sedan, as the newlyweds moved to Glendale to start a family.
Robert had an adventurous side and enjoyed whitewater rafting and hiking the great outdoors. He discovered the game of tennis midlife, which became a passion of his; you could find him on the courts every weekend playing tennis with his friends well into his eighties. He enjoyed downtime with his avid love of reading, spending time with his family, and watching his grandchildren grow up.
Robert is survived by his two children, Matthew Bradford Wilkinson of Palm Springs, California, and Patricia Wilkinson Belsher of Boise, Idaho, as well as his son-in-law Aaron Belsher and his two grandchildren Aidan and Sophia Belsher. He will be laid to rest alongside his beloved wife and lifelong partner Mary at Forest Lawn Glendale, with services the morning of February 25th at the Little Church of the Flowers.
