Robert Bruce Derby was born in 1918 in Norwalk, Huron County, OHIO, the youngest child of Attorney Kenneth R. and Alice "May" (Nee Ferguson) Derby. He had a sister, Rose, and a brother, Donald. Robert graduated from Norwalk High School. On 03 July 1940, he married Miss Eleanor Grimmer, the daughter of the late Frank and Agnes Blinzley Grimmer, of Norwalk.

On 08 October 1941, Robert was involved in a serious motor vehicle accident. His motorcycle
hit a hay truck in Milan, Ohio, and Robert was injured when he was thrown from the motorcycle upon impact with the truck and struck a tree. Robert was on his way to Sandusky where he was employed at the time of the accident. Robert struck the truck, which was blocking the road, when he attempted a left turn off Route 113 onto Main St. in Milan. It was reported the truck driver did not stop and continued south on the Greenwich Angling Rd. The truck driver was wanted by police for failure to stop after causing an accident. Robert sustained a fractured skull and fractured left arm.

Robert recovered from his injuries and continued working towards his Law Degree. Robert had completed two and a half years in the School of Law, at Ohio Northern University, (in Ada, Ohio), at the time of his enlistment, on 05 December 1942.

Robert earned a promotion from Private to Private First Class (PFC), but while at an Army Training Camp, Robert was stricken with menningitis. After hosptalization, he was improved enough to receive a furlough, but was later sent to Brecksville Hospital for observation. Doctors there recommended a return to the Hines Hospital (in Hines, Illinois), for a brain operation. Death followed the operation. PFC Robert Bruce Derby was 26 years old when he died on 25 July 1944. His body was returned to Ohio, and he was buried in Milan Cemetery, in Milan, Erie County, Ohio.

Robert was survived by his wife, Eleanor Grimmer Derby, his parents, Kenneth and May Ferguson Derby, his sister, Rose Derby Blackmar, and his niece, Alice Blackmar, all of Norwalk, Ohio, and his brother, Air Corpsman, Donald H. Derby, in flight school, at Deming, New Mexico.

Robert's brother, Donald H. Derby, survived the war, went on to earn his Law Degree, Cum Laude, in June of 1956, from Cleveland's John Marshall School of Law. Donald became a practising Attorney in the city of Norwalk, Ohio, and was elected Norwalk Municipal Court Judge, and served for many years in that capacity.

Sandusky Register Star News - October 10, 1941, Sandusky, Ohio
Norwalk Youth Injured In Crash
NORWALK, Oct. 10 (Spl.)—-The condition of Robert Derby, 23, Newton St, is reported to be improved at Memorial Hospital, where he was taken after receiving a fractured skull and left arm when his motorcycle hit a hay truck in Milan late Wednesday afternoon.

Derby is the son of Kenneth R. Derby, Norwalk attorney, and was on his way to Sandusky where he is employed at the time of the accident. Derby struck the truck, which was blocking the road, when he attempted a left turn off Route 113 onto Main St. in Milan. It is reported the truck driver did not stop and continued south on the Greenwich Angling Rd. He is wanted by police for failure to stop after causing an accident.

Sandusky Register Star News - October 23, 1941, Sandusky, Ohio
Bound To Grand Jury In $100 Bond
George W. Goodman, 67, Route 3, New London, was bound over to the Erie Co. grand jury this morning when in a preliminary hearing he pleaded not guilty in municipal court to a charge of leaving the scene of an accident. He was released upon furnishing a $100 cash bond. Goodman was arrested by the State Highway Patrol upon investigation of a traffic accident at the intersectionof Routes 250 and 601 in Milan on Oct. 8 (1941).

Robert Derby, 23, NorwalK, who was riding a motorcycle was injured when he was thrown after
striking a tree. He was going north on Route 250 and the truck driven by Goodman was going
south on route 250 and 601, approaching the intersection, according to testimony this morning.

Derby suffered a fractured skull. City Solicitor C. E. Moyer represented the state, and Attorney

Britt Young of Norwalk and Attorney Robert Close of Sandusky represented Goodman.

Sandusky Register Star News - July 27, 1944, Sandusky, Ohio
Neighboring Deaths and Funerals
ROBERT O. DERBY
NORVVALK, July 27—Robert O Derby, 24, who was discharged from the U. S. Army at a Kansas camp some time ago, died yesterday in Hines Hospital, Chicago, after having an operation. He also had received treatment in the federal hospital at Brecksville.

His widow: the parents, Attorney and Mrs. Kenneth R. Derby, and a brother, Donald, who had served in the Canadian army and with the U. S. Forces in England, survive. The brother is now in an officers training school in this country.

The body is to arrive here today and will be taken to the Orebaugh Funeral Home.

Veterans' Hospitals
Beginning in the early 1800s, the government of the United States government opened institutions called marine hospitals for the medical care of merchant seamen. Originating on the Atlantic seaboard, these institutions eventually were built at major cities on inland waterways as well. Administered by what came to be called the U.S. Public Health Service, marine hospitals, as well as Soldiers' Homes, the U.S. Naval Home in Philadelphia, St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington DC, and occasionally active-duty Army and Navy hospitals, provided medical care for veterans of the armed forces on an as-needed basis.

When approximately 200,000 discharged U.S. soldiers in need of further hospitalization began to return from World War I, the necessity to expand hospital care for veterans became apparent. In the Chicago area, sick and injured veterans were sent to the old Marine Hospital in the Lake View community on the North Side and to United States Public Health Hospital No. 30, which was the commandeered Cooper-Monatah Hotel building at 47th and Drexel on the South Side. Needing more beds on the South Side, the Public Health Service also took over Jackson Park Hospital at 75th and Stony Island Avenue.

In 1921 the new Veterans' Bureau (renamed the Veterans' Administration [VA] in 1930) consolidated veterans' affairs and the following year assumed control of Public Health Service hospitals serving veterans. Largest of the Chicago-area Veterans' Hospitals, the Edward Hines, Jr., Hospital opened in Maywood in 1921. Lumber magnate Edward Hines, Sr., donated more than a million dollars for this hospital as a memorial to his son, who had died in France. Marshal Foch of the French Army came to Chicago for its dedication. Five years later, the North Chicago Veterans' Administration Hospital opened near the Great Lakes Naval Training Station about 40 miles north of the city.

Although they had fought America's enemies alongside white soldiers, African American veterans found segregation and unequal treatment in some veterans' hospitals, and doors were totally closed to them at others. The Harding administration built a federal hospital for black veterans in Tuskegee, Alabama, in 1923, but it was not until 1953 that the VA officially ordered an end to segregation in all its hospitals.

Just after World War II, the Hines Hospital was first in the VA system to affiliate with a local medical school to enhance medical care while providing clinical education for medical students. Large numbers of veterans after World War II and the Korean War, along with a drive to expand medical education, prompted construction of two VA hospitals within Chicago's borders. The West Side VA Hospital was built in Chicago's Medical District in 1953, and the VA Research Hospital (later known as Lakeside Hospital) arose on the Chicago campus of Northwestern University in 1954.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, approximately 170 VA hospitals provided general medical and social services to both male and female veterans: acute care in cases of serious injury or sickness, rehabilitation in cases of disability, nursing homes, and domiciles for indigent veterans. The same demographic and economic forces affecting other hospitals in the last decades of the twentieth century had an impact on VA hospitals. The two Chicago VA hospitals merged into the VA Chicago Health Care System in 1996, and the North Chicago VA Hospital, which had been slated for closing, merged with the Great Lakes Naval Training Center Hospital.

Paul A. Buelow

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findagrave.com
Robert B. Derby
Birth: unknown
Death: 1944

Burial: Milan Cemetery
Milan, Erie County, Ohio, USA

Created by: Tony Larson
Record added: Oct 10, 2008

Find A Grave Memorial# 30475884

World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938 - 1946
ARMY SERIAL NUMBER 35536465 35536465
NAME DERBY#ROBERT#B########## DERBY#ROBERT#B##########
RESIDENCE: STATE 53 OHIO
RESIDENCE: COUNTY 077 HURON
PLACE OF ENLISTMENT 5384 TOLEDO OHIO
DATE OF ENLISTMENT DAY 05 05
DATE OF ENLISTMENT MONTH 12 12
DATE OF ENLISTMENT YEAR 42 42
GRADE: ALPHA DESIGNATION PVT# Private
GRADE: CODE 8 Private
BRANCH: ALPHA DESIGNATION B+# Undefined Code
BRANCH: CODE 00 Branch Immaterial - Warrant Officers, USA
FIELD USE AS DESIRED # #
TERM OF ENLISTMENT 5 Enlistment for the duration of the War or other emergency,
plus six months, subject to the discretion of the President or otherwise according to law
LONGEVITY ### ###
SOURCE OF ARMY PERSONNEL 4 National Guard in Federal Service, after 3 months of Discharge
NATIVITY 53 OHIO
YEAR OF BIRTH 18 18
RACE AND CITIZENSHIP 1 White, citizen
EDUCATION 4 4 years of high school
CIVILIAN OCCUPATION 475 Machinists
MARITAL STATUS 2 Married
COMPONENT OF THE ARMY 7 Selectees (Enlisted Men)
CARD NUMBER # #
BOX NUMBER 0955 0955

FILM REEL NUMBER 5.17# 5.17#

1920 Census/Norwalk/Huron Co./Ohio/Roll: 1398/ED-51/Page: 2A
Household Members: Name Age Family # 27-28
Keneth R Derbey/Head of Household/35/married/OHx3/Agent/Real Estate
Alice M Derbey/Wife/31/married/MICH/OHx2
Rose M Derbey/Daughter/6
Donald H Derbey/Son/4
Robert B Derbey/Son/1yr-5months

Living on Milan E. Norwalk Road (St. Rt. 61)

08 April 1930 Census/Norwalk/Huron Co./Ohio/Roll: 1823/ED-23/Page: 3A
Household Members: Name Age Family #: 61-63
Kenneth R Derby/Head of Household/44/1st married at 27/OHx3/Lawyer/Own Office
Mary F Derby/Wife/40/1st married at 23/MICH/OHx2
Rose M Derby/Daughter/16/OHx2/MICH
Donald H Derby/Son/13/OHx2/MICH
Robert B Derby/Son11/OHx2/MICH

Living on State Route 61

NOTE: Kenneth R. Derby, a 1910 graduate of Cleveland, Ohio's Western Reserve University's Frank T. Backus Law School with a Bachelor of Law Degree, and passed the Ohio Bar Exam in June of 1910, as published in the Cleveland Plain Dealer Newspaper of 21 June 1910.

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Robert's Brother, Donald H. Derby:

World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938 - 1946
ARMY SERIAL NUMBER 10600813 10600813
NAME DERBY#DONALD#H########## DERBY#DONALD#H##########
RESIDENCE: STATE 01 U.S. AT LARGE
RESIDENCE: COUNTY 000 NO COUNTIES SHOWN
PLACE OF ENLISTMENT 0429 Undefined Code
DATE OF ENLISTMENT DAY 02 02
DATE OF ENLISTMENT MONTH 02 02
DATE OF ENLISTMENT YEAR 43 43
GRADE: ALPHA DESIGNATION PVT# Private
GRADE: CODE 8 Private
BRANCH: ALPHA DESIGNATION NO# No branch assignment
BRANCH: CODE 02 No branch assignment
FIELD USE AS DESIRED # #
TERM OF ENLISTMENT 5 Enlistment for the duration of the War or other emergency,
plus six months, subject to the discretion of the President or otherwise according to law
LONGEVITY ### ###
SOURCE OF ARMY PERSONNEL 4 National Guard in Federal Service, after 3 months of Discharge
NATIVITY 53 OHIO
YEAR OF BIRTH 16 16
RACE AND CITIZENSHIP 1 White, citizen
EDUCATION 0 Grammar school
CIVILIAN OCCUPATION 993 Undefined Code
MARITAL STATUS 6 Single, without dependents
COMPONENT OF THE ARMY 6 Army of the United States - includes the following: Voluntary enlistments effective December 8, 1941 and thereafter; One year enlistments of National Guardsman whose State enlistment expires while in the Federal Service; Officers appointed in the Army of the United States under Army Regulations 605-10
CARD NUMBER # #
BOX NUMBER 0055 0055

FILM REEL NUMBER 1.48# 1.48#

Donald H. Derby: Social Security Death Index (SSDI) Death Record
Name: Donald H. Derby
Date of Birth: Monday October 09, 1916
Date of Death: Monday May 06, 1991
Est. Age at death: 74 years, 6 months, 27 days
Last known residence:
State: Unknown
Social Security details:
State of Issue: Ohio
Number: 281-05-4579