Robert Rea “Bobby” Ware Jr., 93, a Chicago businessman and lifelong resident of the west suburbs, died April 19 at the Oak Park Arms retirement community in Oak Park.
Mr. Ware Jr., was born March 18, 1913, in Chicago, the first child of Robert Rea Ware and Elizabeth “Bessie,” nee Dickerson. In 1919 the family moved to Oak Park and 6-year-old Bobby enrolled at William Beye Elementary School where, a few years later, he would meet his future wife, Elizabeth “Betty” Craig. Mr. Ware graduated from Oak Park-River Forest High School in Oak Park, and attended the University of Chicago, where he majored in business and was a member of Skull and Crescent Honor Society as well as Alpha Delta Phi fraternity.
On June 22, 1940, he married his childhood sweetheart in Oak Park. He was employed at the firm founded by his father and uncles, Ware Brothers Manufacturing/Chicago Roller Skate Co. Learning the business from the ground up, “Robert Junior,” as he was known at the plant, eventually became Vice President of Manufacturing, a position he held until his retirement in 1983.
In addition to the family home on North Scoville Avenue where Mr. Ware grew up, he lived for a short time in an apartment on Austin Boulevard in Oak Park with his new bride. The couple’s first house was on 77th Court in Elmwood Park, where they lived during World War II and the postwar years. By 1950 Mr. Ware had purchased the residence on Edgewood Place in River Forest which was to be his family’s home for more than four decades. The last 15 years of his life were spent in the Oak Park Arms retirement community.
As a young man, Mr. Ware excelled in a number of individual sports. His favorite pastime, however, was sailing — a skill developed under the tutelage of his uncles and father while summering in northern Michigan. A member of the Chicago Yacht Club for 50 years, Mr. Ware skippered his own boats out of CYC’s Monroe Street harbor.
Mr. Ware was a self-taught musician and in his later years became known around the village as a harmonicist extraordinaire: until recently, “B. Ware” might have been seen on a Saturday blowing one of his 13 harmonicas in the company of the Oak Park Farmers’ Market musicians.
Always supportive of public education, Ware was a card-carrying “Member of Distinction” in North East Independent School District’s Senior Stars Club. He made classroom visits, sometimes in costume, and demonstrated his harmonica playing for elementary students in area schools.
All his adult life Ware was active in the various churches to which he and his family belonged. As a young married couple, Bob and Betty were founding members of Elmwood Park’s First Presbyterian Church. From the mid-1950s the family belonged to First Presbyterian Church of Oak Park. At the time of his death, Mr. Ware was a member of First United Church of Oak Park, the merged congregation (UCC and Presbyterian) housed in the former First Congregational Church, his boyhood church home.
Preceded in death by Elizabeth, his wife of nearly 42 years, and two of his younger siblings, Mr. Ware is survived by one brother, Ralph C. “Mike” of San Antonio, Texas; his only child, daughter Jean W. Hanson of Cleveland Heights, Ohio; two grandsons, Robert and James Hanson of Cheverly, MD, and Union Ohio, respectively; three great-grandchildren, Miles, Andrew and Nathaniel; and numerous nieces and nephews.
The family suggests that memorial contributions may be made to any of the following, or a charity of your choice:
American Heart Association/American Stroke Association 7272 Greenville Ave., Dallas TX 75231; American Indian College Fund, 8333 Greenwood Boulevard, Denver, CO 80221; Nature Conservancy, 4245 N. Fairfax Drive, Arlington, VA 22203; Sail Chicago, 800 Austin St., West Tower Suite 508, Evanston, IL 60202.
