More
- Classifieds
- Cars
- Deals
- Real Estate
- Rentals
- Photos
- Find&Save
- Obituaries
- Archives
- Topics
- Blogs
- WP Wine Club

Obituaries

Joseph E. Robert Jr., Washington philanthropist, dies of brain cancer at 59

By Thomas Heath,December 08, 2011

(Page 2 of 2)

Mr. Robert once told The Washington Post that his father was an “alcoholic abuser.” His father left home when Mr. Robert was in grammar school, and the two didn’t communicate for many years.

He showed a penchant for business early on. At 10, he recovered some discarded boxing equipment and organized matches for neighborhood kids in his back yard on Rockdale Drive. He stuck broom handles in the ground and with clothesline made a boxing ring. He charged for popcorn and lemonade.

He sold applesauce. He sold Christmas trees. He sold bacon.

He was in the fourth grade.

“They were the fight nights of the ’50s and ’60s,” he recalled.

Mr. Robert attended St. John’s College High School in Washington, where he famously got into fistfights, set off a smoke bomb and was expelled on more than one occasion. He also excelled in math and chemistry.

His father went to a loan shark in Philadelphia to get money for tuition. “I never got to pay my tuition on time, so I almost never got my report card. The good news is I didn’t get my report card,” Mr. Robert said.

The teenager grew at St. John’s, where the competition was as ferocious in the classroom as it was on the playing field.

“There was a real focus on winning,” he recalled in an interview a few years ago. “It wasn’t just sports. It was grades. It was class rank.”

One semester, Mr. Robert would have a 70 average; the next, he would get a 96 average with honors.

He developed a lifelong affection for the school, becoming one of its biggest benefactors. He gave $1 million for a Joseph E. Robert Jr. science hall. He also paid for children of family and friends to attend St. John’s, from which he graduated in 1970.

Mr. Robert said he was expelled from Mount St. Mary’s College in Emmitsburg, Md., after a violent confrontation with a fellow student who was abusing a dog.

“I told him the next time he slapped the dog, I would slap him,” he told The Post in 2009.

When he heard the student beating the dog, Mr. Robert broke his way into the room with a baseball bat. He rescued the dog and kept it as a pet for 17 years.

Mr. Robert’s marriages to Gayle Davis and Jill Sorensen ended in divorce.

Survivors include one son from his first marriage, Joseph E. Robert III of McLean, and one from his second, Luke S. Robert; his father, Joseph E. Robert Sr. of Ocean Pines, Md.; his mother, Aimee Lou Robert of Silver Spring; three sisters, Janice E. Robert of Gaithersburg, Christine E. Robert of New York and Cynthia L. Robert-Clark of Miami; and one brother, Thomas P. Robert of Sebring, Fla.

Two years ago, after his brain cancer diagnosis, he told The Post that God should do a “net present value” on his life.

“I believe the numbers will convince him I am more valuable doing his work here!” he said.

Continued1

2