Robert Dean Klassen

Robert was born Sept. 14, 1934, in Oakland, Calif., the son of the late Herman and Ruby Jewel Klassen. His parents were raised Mennonites and who, like so many others, escaped the impossibility of farming the cracked red soil of Oklahoma for the promised land of the west coast. His father had a fifth-grade education, and his mother attended the available small school, twelve grades of perfect attendance and perfect scores on every assignment – pulled out of school abruptly to help care for younger brothers at home. Somehow his parents managed to raise their only son with fervent work ethic, never ending curiosity, and a compulsive desire to read every word ever put in print, the urge to talk about it also seemed hard wired: a schoolteacher is born.

Bob grew into a popular school athlete, more important than a scholarship in the panhandle of Oklahoma. An indifferent student, did not appreciate college until like many of his generation, spent two years as a draftee in the U.S. Army. He returned an intensely motivated student, appreciative of his subsidized education, gravitating toward some sort of eventual career in business.

About this time, Bob went on a double-blind date and fell hard for his friend’s date, a very lively redhead named Rosie Marie. His attention was reciprocated. Rosie was 17 at the time and majoring in speech and theatre. She would go on to become one of the best debaters in the country, putting lowly Panhandle A &M on a par with Ivy League Schools. She had no trouble convincing Bob that he too should become a theatre major, and that as soon as she turned 18 that crossing the border into New Mexico and getting married would be lots of fun.

They crossed the border and got married with the change in their pockets and went back to class on Monday. Parents, teachers, and peers were outraged. Everyone knew that such a foolish, impulsive marriage could not possibly last. Fifty-two years later, parted only by death, everyone was proved wrong.

In 1969, Robert became “Dr. Bob” when theatre students sought a form of address with equal parts respect and affection for their favorite professor – newly minted PhD. The nickname followed him for his 20 year, seven university teaching careers.

During those 52 years of marriage, they moved many times and launched many projects. In part because both were too long naive about the tenure system. They also produced two sons: Kristopher, professional soccer player, turned coach and referee and Eric, multitalented musician drawing on his father’s business genes, making a living, doing the unlikely thing he does.

Bob taught briefly at the Universities of Georgia and South Carolina, and six years at Michigan State. He began and developed a theatre program at Marquette University before rounding out his teaching career at SUNY Fredonia, where he served as chairman of Theatre and Dance from 1984 until 1999.

When Bob was ready to begin his research, he took out a student loan and was free to concentrate on his project, interviewing and documenting the few survivors of a touring theatre company that for years had flourished in the dusty towns of his youth. True believers who maintained the sets, costumes, posters, and clippings of the TOBY plays. Bob was enthralled by the people he interviewed and intrigued by the plays themselves. Predictable plots and familiar characters that have survived since Roman times, as at home in the American southwest as in Shakespeare’s time. Bob’s interest in and affection for those comic types resurfaced years later when in 1973 he was able to stage the modern equivalent: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way To the Forum, taking a group of student performers in a USO tour, 145 appearances in Germany, Italy, Belgium and the Azores.

A final notable fact. Bob Klassen is probably the only person in history of higher education who loved writing his dissertation. He and Rose had worked throughout their college careers. Teaching when they could and accepting any work that would let them stay in school. The worst, scrubbing toilets in a strip to the best, teaching elementary school; in an affluent LA suburb with supportive administration, grateful parents, and eager students. If public education paid a living wage, they might have stayed.

Per Bob’s wishes, all funeral arrangements will be held privately.

Funeral arrangement’s have been cared for and provided by the Morse Funeral Home, 51 Highland Ave., Brocton, N.Y.