Robert Leslie Rathbone
Robert Leslie Rathbone, 66, of Stuart, Virginia, passed away Friday, March 19, 2021 at Forsyth Medical Center in Winston Salem, North Carolina. Robert was born October 16, 1954 to Lester Rathbone and Sylvia Andre Stephens in Charleston, West Virginia.
Robert is preceded in death by his mother.
Robert is survived by his beloved wife of 45 years, Valerie Husser Rathbone; son, Maxwell Alexander Rathbone; sister, Lora Rathbone, and grandchildren, Iona Rosalind and Avalyn Alexandria.
Robert was an intelligent, kind, and loving soul with a wide variety of hobbies and interests, and never enough time to pursue them all. He had a profound passion for knowledge and spending time with his family. He once told his son that he valued books and knowledge so greatly that he would spend his last dollar buying him a book.
Robert lived most of his adult life in St. Petersburg, Florida, then in Tampa, Florida when he married, though when he was younger, when his father was in the military, his family spent time in France and Japan. When his wife retired in Spring of 2020, they bought their dream home in Stuart, Virginia.
He found his lifelong career in computers from learning computer programming on a computer owned by his high school and knew then that it was the path he wanted to pursue. He taught himself many computer languages during his career and also was interested in building and modifying personal computers when they became available. His skillset was unusual for the time, in that he had the ability to combine all aspects of computers; hardware, software, and networking.
Robert shared his passion for computers and software programming with his son who continues to pursue programming as part of his career. Robert believed in the free spread of information and to that end would share his knowledge and experience with anyone who would give him their time.
Just before his son was born in 1979, Robert started his own company and sold Wang computers to auto dealerships, and wrote customer software to produce all the forms that must be produced to complete a sale. From that point on, he was self-employed.
Later, he self-wrote custom automation software that was used by countless radio stations that allowed the staff to quickly and easily schedule the programming; play commercials; and record, edit and playback call-ins.
As part of his personal computer projects, he created Blue Star Village, one of the first bulletin board systems (BBS) in the area. Blue Star Village was programmed to allow users to create their own personal forums, which was a unique trait even among more commercial bulletin board systems.
When his son found a phone computer board laying around in the garage, Robert worked with his son to create Sanity’s Edge – One of the first phone-in bulletin board systems. As part of his efforts to share his love of programming and technology with his son, he taught him C programming in order to have him help to create and modify the software that ran the system.
As part of Robert’s efforts to involve the whole family in computer gaming, he spent hours working to ensure that early networked computer games, such as Descent and Doom would work on the family’s computers so he, his wife, and his son could all play together. He also made sure that all the family computers worked so that each person could play their favorites of all the games offered at the time. As part of this effort, he taught his son computer networking and the nuances of configuring and optimizing personal computers for game play.
Robert loved to tell stories. He loved to play Dungeons and Dragons with his wife and a certain group of friends every week for a few years. Of course, he played Dungeon Master so the adventures he designed for them always involved the most interesting, challenging, and fun adventures, as he told stories to go with the game. Everyone who knew Robert enjoyed his stories of family, as well as his tales of daily life and its challenges.
In addition to his love of computer programming, Robert had many other passions in life, including listening to and producing music, amateur (HAM) radio for disaster response, art, geology, and gardening. Later in life, and over a period of years, he gathered keyboards, synthesizers, and other musical equipment to set up his own personal music studio in the pursuit of creating synthesized music. He seemed to find an amount of peace and serenity from his hours spent creating ambient music. He loved sharing his music and talking about his equipment setup.
During the years he worked the HAM radio, as part of the US Army Military Auxiliary Radio System (MARS) HAM radio disaster preparedness program, he earned a distinguished service award for his participation in emergency response communication services after Hurricane Katrina. He helped to save a family trapped on their roof by forwarding an emergency call for help to locate authorities who could reach the family and save them. He participated in emergency communications and response planning for local hospitals to enable them to set up and staff their own radio rooms to allow them to communicate during disasters. He also assisted the Salvation Army with HAM radio services after several hurricanes in Florida, where he was living at the time. Robert earned the highest level of HAM radio licenses the FCC offers, Amateur Extra, and used the callsign AG4ZG.
Robert also had a life-long love of geology and rock collecting and had a large collection of interesting rocks. His wife enjoyed rock collecting with him and they made trips just for the purpose of collecting new rocks.
Robert always kept a positive attitude, and was known for his good sense of humor. He loved his family and he and his wife spent nearly 10 years, along with his son and his son’s family, creating detailed plans together for a retirement which would allow them all to live close enough to be a part of his grandchildren’s lives. His retirement dreams became reality a year before he passed. He felt that the dream home they bought was like “living in a painting”, and was very happy to be able to spend more time with his son and grandchildren.
Robert will be greatly missed by all who loved and knew him.
Services to be held at a future date.
Wright Funeral Service & Crematory is serving the family. Online condolences may be made at www.wrightfuneralservices.net
