May 3, 2008
ROBERT HAWTHORNE, 69:
Salesman, 35-year resident
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Robert W. Hawthorne, a wry and genial man who worked in graphics and printing over close to four decades in Ridgefield, died Saturday morning, May 3, at his home in Casagmo. He was 69, and the husband of Helen Pattison Hawthorne.
“He was a good person,” his wife said. “He treated people very well.”
He was born in Stamford on March 6, 1939, the son of Margaret Webb Hawthorne of Ridgefield and the late Robert D. Hawthorne.
He graduated from Stamford High School with the class of 1957 and attended the University of Massachusetts in Amherst.
Mr. Hawthorne was a salesman of graphic design and print products. In early years, he sold school yearbooks and had been associated with the former Marketing Corporation of America and Cox Enterprises. Mr. Hawthorne was retired from Oxford Color of Norwalk.
“He was a color specialist,” Mrs. Hawthorne said. “If you wanted a certain color, he could tell you how many parts green, or yellow, to the dot.”
His work would regularly take him up to Canada to oversee color production on “Big Bertha,” a printing press the size of a football field.
Mr. Hawthorne moved from Stamford to Barrack Hill Road in 1971, and over the years he lived on Haviland Road and Abbott Avenue before moving to Lawson Lane. He was active in community affairs and in the sporting activities of his two sons who grew up in Ridgefield and went to Ridgefield Schools.
As a young man he’d been a skeet shooting enthusiast and an instructor in the sport at Greenwich Country Club. An expert on guns, he had worked as consultant to Safari Outfitters of Branchville when he first moved to Ridgefield.
“He was an avid hunter,” his wife said. “He used to go up to Nova Scotia with friends for weeks at a time.”
Mr. Hawthorne fought cancer his last couple of years. “He was very brave,” Mrs. Hawthorne said.
Besides his wife of 14 years and his mother, Margaret Hawthorne of Laurel Ridge, Mr. Hawthorne is survived by: two sons, Gunner Hawthorne and his wife, Kristi, of Des Moines, Iowa, and Shane Hawthorne and his wife, Melanie, of Danbury; a step-son, Robert W. Pattison and his wife, Beverley, of Fairfield; and seven grandchildren, Brianna, Gunner, Kayla, Blake, Rachel, Derek and Bobby.
Another step-son, Jeffrey C. Pattison, died before him.
The family received friends on Monday evening in the Kane Funeral Home. Private burial services will take place in St. Mary’s Cemetery at the direction of the family.
Memorial contributions to the Yale Cancer Center, Otolaryngology Services, 333 Cedar Street, New Haven, CT 06520 would be appreciated.
© Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers
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