Greetings from Bob Sanderson

A Brief Biography

Attended Elmwood Grade School, Calanan Junior High School and Roosevelt High School and graduated June 1935. Attended Drake University in Des Moines as an accounting major and graduated June 1939.

Went to work as a junior accountant with the Certified Public Accounting firm of Busby-Oden & Company with offices in Des Moines and Chicago, Illinois. Stayed with that firm until I was drafted into the Army in June 1942. Married Marjorie Eleanor Conway December 27, 1940.

Spent my military service as a Chief Warrant Officer at Smyrna Air Base, Smyrna, Tennessee. We returned home in the fall of 1945 with our first child Julie born April 14, 1945. I went back to work for Busby-Oden & Company in Des Moines, passed the Iowa CPA examinations and was made a partner of that firm. I left that firm in about 1950 or so and wound up as a partner in another CPA firm in Des Moines and stayed as a partner of successor firms and finally left the CPA profession as the managing partner of a national CPA firm Alexander Grant & Company (now Grant Thornton & Co) in the summer of 1978 and went to work for Des Moines Flying Service as a financial vice president. I went on half time duty there at about 1987 and then took full retirement.

In the meantime Robert Jr was born December 5, 1946, Douglas was born September 20, 1952 and Melanie was born November 29, 1956. At this writing Julie is married with three children and lives in Vermillion, South Dakota, Melanie is married with one child by her first husband and lives in Des Moines , Robert Jr is married and lives in Douglasville Georgia and Douglas has not married and lives in Seattle, Washington.

My wife Marjorie Eleanor Conway Sanderson passed away on January 2, 1993 and I am still living in our home here in West Des Moines, Iowa. I do a lot of corresponding with my family and friends by mail and the Internet by EMail. And, I do a lot of writing of various kinds and send in many letters to the editor of The Des Moines Register----- sending in 103 in 1996 of which they printed 23.

My hobby is my personal computer and the nice printer and a new scanner which goes along with it to make life interesting. I do my own cooking and taking care of the home and have done baking---- won a blue ribbon for my Pound Cake at the 1996 Iowa State Fair. My friend Polly Riley and I spend a lot of time together and take trips and eat out and spend some time at Whitefish Lake near Brainerd , Minnesota during the month of September.

Have started taking some "not for credit" courses at Drake University and some night classes at the West Des Moines schools-----history, the Internet World, and Windows for the personal computing as well as desk-top publishing.

I have done some family research projects in the past several years. One was to trace the Civil War record of Samuel Mardis (Marjorie's great great grandfather who enlisted in the Iowa infantry in 1862 and took sick and died immediately after his battle at Shilo, Tennessee.) and just finished a research paper on the coal mine that Marjorie's father Charles Conway, Jr started, dug, and worked which was just south of Colfax, Iowa.

Have done research projects on several other subjects--the bombing of Holstein, Iowa by the Japanese during World War II, (aerial bombs floated over the Pacific which came down near Holstein, Iowa in 1945), research and a paper about the coal mine that Marjorie's father Charles Conway, Jr. started in 1925, dug and worked which was 3 miles south of their farm home and 3 1/2 miles south of Colfax, Iowa. There was also a paper on Charitable Foundations in Iowa published by The Des Moines Register and an article unpublished about the history of the Conway Park in Colfax, Iowa the land being owned by the Conway family at one time. Two "life history" articles on living Iowans also was an interesting project----Orval Barnes, my bookkeeping teacher at Roosevelt High School who is still living and John Elias Jones former Drake University director of libraries and a professor there and now in charge of the Special Editions section of the Drake Cowles Library. There are a couple of projects now in process that I hope turn out as well as some of the above.