Honolulu County HI Archives Biographies.....Anderson, Robert Alexander June 6, 1894 - ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/hi/hifiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com July 7, 2018, 8:34 am Source: Men of Hawaii Vol. IV Author: George F. Nellist (editor) Anderson, Robert Alexander: Treasurer, Director von Hamm-Young Co., Ltd.; Chairman Territorial Aeronautical Commission. Born June 6, 1894, Honolulu, son of Dr. Robert Willis and Susan Alice (Young) Anderson; married Margaret Leith Center, Honolulu, 1919, children, Robert Alexander, Jr., David Leith and Allen Willis Anderson; member Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity, Eta Kappa Nu (honorary engineering society), American Society Refrigerating Engineers, Rotary Club, Pacific Club, Pearl Harbor Yacht Club, Oahu Country Club, Mid-Pacific Country Club, American Legion. Treasurer and director of the von Hamm-Young Co., Ltd., in Honolulu, Alexander Anderson is also a director of the Alexander Young Estate; and the Alexander Young Building Co., Ltd.. and director Territorial Hotel Co., Lid., Waiakea Mill Co., and Honolulu Bond & Mortgage Co. Outside of his business interests Mr. Anderson was appointed chairman of the Territorial Aeronautical Commission in 1929 by Governor Lawrence M. Judd, and is interested deeply in yachting and music, having composed the music for several of the presentations of the Junior League of Honolulu as well as such popular Hawaiian songs as "Mv Aloha Land" and "Haole Hula." Enlisting in the United States army upon the declaration of war in 1917, Mr. Anderson had an unusual and thrilling experience. He attended an officers’ training school at Fort Niagara, N. Y., aviation school in Ithaca, N. Y., took advanced training at Oxford, England, and received his first lieutenant's commission. Serving at the front from July to Nov., 1918, he was shot down and captured by the Germans behind their lines, and taken to a hospital and prison camp at Mons, Belgium, where he escaped with four other American officers and reached Holland after a dangerous trip through the German lines. He was sent to England and came home for discharge in Jan., 1919. He accepted a position in the fall of 1919 with the Isko Co., Chicago, manufacturers of household refrigerating machines, as director of the research laboratory and later chief engineer, occupying the same position with the McClellan Refrigerating Co., Chicago, from 1921 to 1923, when he returned to Hawaii as a salesman in the machinery department of the von Hamm Young Co., Ltd., was elected director in charge of the refrigerating machinery department in 1925, and treasurer in 1928. He was enrolled from 1916 to 1917 in the graduate student engineering courses of the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Co., East Pittsburg, Pa. Mr. Anderson, son of Dr. Robert W. Anderson, pioneer Honolulu dentist, and grandson of the late Alexander Young, was educated at Punahou Academy and Cornell University (M. E., 1916). Photo: http://www.usgwarchives.net/hi/honolulu/photos/bios/anderson207gbs.jpg File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/hi/honolulu/bios/anderson207gbs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/hifiles/ File size: 3.4 Kb