There is an old saying that states, “you can take the man away from the country, but you can’t take the country away from the man.” For Robert Scott – everyone calls him Bob – that seems especially true.
Born in Rhode Island and raised in the Spragueville section of Smithfield, he has lived in Indiana for the major part of his adulthood, but he retains a deep affection for the town where he spent his youth.
“Smithfield was a great town to grow up in,” he says during a telephone interview from Fort Wayne, which is more than 800 miles from here by car, a distance he has driven many times, sometimes doing it in one day.
Scott, his parents, Charles and Harriet, and his sister, Leslie, lived on Swan Road, just a stone’s throw from Pleasant View Avenue. At that time their house, a former school, was surrounded by apple trees owned by the Payette family.
“For a young boy there were lots of places to fish. There were the apple orchards to explore,” Scott observes, adding, “it was also kind of cool to be able to go to a nearby dairy and milk a cow.”
A very short bike ride away was Jaswell’s Farm. It was not yet the diverse agricultural enterprise it is today, but it was cutting-edge for the times. Scott recalls stopping there often and getting to know the family well. Whenever he comes to town, he still tries to stop in and visit.
Speaking of bicycle adventures prompts an observation by the 84-year-old Scott. “When your parents would ask where you were going when you got on your bike in the morning, you would say ‘I’m not sure’ and they would say, ‘OK, just be careful.’”
He continues, “we did goofy things, but we were safe. Basically everybody in the neighborhood knew everybody else. Families kept an eye on other families’ kids.”
However, as if to confirm the goofy part, he confesses that in winter when it snowed he went sliding down a good part of the entire length of Swan Road.
Scott has only praise for the educational system in town during his youth. Reminiscing, he speaks of fellow students and notes that he has class photos for most of his elementary school years at William Winsor School. He also mentions some long-remembered teachers.
Among them are Mrs. Kerrins, Mrs. Holt, Vincent Gallagher, who was the principal, Harry Wescott, Mrs. Brakenwagen, and several others.
Scott, like a good number of his cohorts, joined the Greenville Volunteer Fire Company when he was old enough. It was an era when community service was commonly embraced, and being in the fire company allowed a good number of teenage men to learn about the work ethic and to develop a sense of common purpose. Sharing the job with older men, many of whom were veterans of World War II and the Korean War, was an unparalleled opportunity to experience firsthand the essence of mature commitment.
“We probably grew up in the best of times,” Scott reflects.
After graduating from Hope High School in Providence, he went to Fort Wayne to study at the Indiana Institute of Technology. At a college mixer he met Loretta Zigler, an Ohio woman who was studying nursing. She would become his wife, and they would have two sons and adopt a daughter.
In Indiana, Scott went to work for General Electric and also took courses in mechanical engineering at Perdue University, eventually earning his degree in that field there.
His work took him to Tell City, Indiana, a community that was named after William Tell. There he designed and developed electric motors which were used for opening garage doors and powering window fans and the like. In 1976 he relocated back to Fort Wayne.
He ended up working for GE for 39 years, first in engineering, then in marketing and outside sales. “It was a fun job. I really liked it,” he declares. However, he never forgot about his ties to Smithfield. His sister and their parents, dad a businessman and mom the director at Greenville Public Library and then later the Town Clerk in Smithfield, all stayed in Rhode Island.
Scott never cut his connection to the town or lost his love for the area. He returned just about every year, and though his family here have passed he still comes back.
He had gotten into flying, and with a colleague, he purchased a Cessna 180 single-engine, four-place airplane. He explains that he always wanted to be a pilot, and using it would only take four and a half hours to travel from Indiana to Providence. After he acquired the plane, he made quite a few trips home by air.
It wasn’t the only use he made of the aircraft, though. He also flew locally in Indiana and to visit his son in Virginia. In addition, he signed up to fly patients for AirLifeLine, a volunteer service that transports people needing medical care.
Scott owned his share of the Cessna until six years ago, when he sold it. “There’s a time for everything,” he declares, noting that he has done very little flying since selling the plane.
He adds, “my license will die with me.” However, he can’t use it without taking up-to-date training and passing medical tests.
He sold his family home in Smithfield in 2003 but has continued to return every year to visit remaining relatives and old friends.
“I need to get back to recharge my roots, bring back those old memories. I need that. In Smithfield I made lifelong friends. You’re part of everybody you ever met.”
Laurence J. Sasso Jr.
(Contact me at: smithpublarry@gmail.com)