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Weir Mac Cuish Family Funeral Home 144 Salem Street, Malden, MA 02148 A member of the Malden Community since 1896 |
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Robert Lawrence Uran
December 17, 1920 - January 10, 2009
Robert L. Uran died Saturday, January 10, 2009 at the age of 88 after an illness at Lawrence Memorial Hospital, Medford, MA. Born and raised in New York, he had been living at Glen Ridge Nursing Center in Medford, MA. He was the son of Beatrice Cunningham and David Uran, both of New York City. His mother played the piano for silent films and his father was a pharmacist. Bob learned to play the violin as a youngster and had a Chow dog. Both dogs and classical music became life-long loves. He went to Erasmus High School in Brooklyn and later attended Monmouth College in the heartland of Illinois for a year. He transferred to Brooklyn College where he graduated in 1942 with a bachelor’s degree in Economics with a minor in Psychology. One professor who made a long-term impression upon him was Abraham Maslow known as the father of humanistic psychology, and the hierarchy of human needs. Another person made an even bigger impression; a biology and education major named Louise Smith with whom he would be married for fifty-two years. They married on St. Valentine’s Day, 1943, while Bob was on a weekend pass from the Army, and the couple was not reunited for over three years. While in the Army, Bob attained the rank of sergeant serving as a medical laboratory technician in a hospital in Cornwall, England, and played violin in the hospital’s big band at service dances. After the end of the war he was stationed at a prisoner of war camp located in France. After the war Bob earned a masters degree through the G. I. bill in education at Columbia Teachers College. He taught high school business subjects in Hampton Bays, Long Island, NY, while Louise taught nearby in a three-room elementary school. After the birth of their first-born, Robert, in 1949, Bob switched careers and became an accountant for Mobil Oil. He later worked for St. Regis Paper Company; a fortune 500 firm based in New York City, where he was employed for over 40 years. After Hampton Bays, his young family settled in new housing on what was previously a potato field in Hicksville, Long Island. Here, their daughter Elizabeth was born in 1956. Bob attended night school at Pace University and received an MBA degree in taxation. He raised though the ranks at St. Regis Paper Company to the position of Director of Federal, State and Local Tax Compliance at the time of retirement. Bob and Louise moved to Pearl River, New York in 1980 where they became active members of the Pearl River Methodist Church. Bob’s retirement was busy. He worked as a consultant for Champion Papers, which had acquired St. Regis, taught income tax courses at Pace University, served as President of the Rockland County AARP chapter, Treasurer of the Pearl River Methodist Church, member of the Commission of the Rockland County Office for the Aging, and as a member of a Rockland County commission charged with recommending how to manage a financial crisis caused by court costs associated with the nationally famous 1981 Brinks robbery. Bob was an avid science fiction reader and lover of opera. Louise, after retiring from a long career in teaching, focused on creating art and reading mystery novels. Before Louise’s death in 1995, they traveled extensively and enjoyed many concerts and operas together. Bob is survived by his son, Robert Tompkins of Santa Monica, CA, who is a retired civil servant and CPA, his daughter Elizabeth Campbell-Tompkins of Malden, MA, who teaches seventh grade science at the Ferryway School in Malden, her spouse Deirdre and their children Katherine and Mariah. He also leaves his sister-in-law Alice Smith of Maryland, brother-in-law William Donnelly of Florida and many nieces and nephews, and close companion Phoebe Hsia. Visiting hour will be held in the Weir-Mac Cuish Golden Rule Funeral Home, 144 Salem St. Malden, MA on Wednesday, January 14, 2009 from 5-8 PM with a funeral service at 8PM. Interment in New York at a later date. In lieu of flowers the family has requested donation to a charity of your choice.
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