Statewide 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: J. Orr orr@hawaii.com October 15, 2009, 7:27 pm Source: The Story of Hawaii and Its Builders. Published by The Honolulu Star Bulletin, Territory of Hawaii, 1925 Author: Edited by George F. Nellist ROBERT ALEXANDER ANDERSON, Department Manager. A son of Dr. Robert W. Anderson, well known kamaaina Honolulu dentist, and a grandson of the late Alexander Young, builder of the Alexander Young Hotel and a leader in the industrial development of the Territory, Robert A. Anderson returned to his native Honolulu from the mainland in 1923 and entered the employ of the von Hamm-Young Co., Ltd., as a salesman in the machinery department. In February, 1925, he was elected a director of the corporation and placed in charge of the refrigerating machinery department. He is also a director of the Alexander Young Estate and a director and assistant secretary of the Territorial Hotels Co., Ltd., and the Alexander Young Building Co., Ltd. Mr. Anderson is a radio enthusiast, and keenly interested in dramatics and music, taking part in amateur theatricals, and has composed several popular Hawaiian melodies, including “My Aloha Land” and “Lullaby.” He was stage director of “The Temple Dance,” an opera staged by the Morning Music Club in February, 1925. He is a golfer and during his college days was active in track and baseball on Cornell University teams. He attended Punahou and was graduated from Cornell with the degree of M.E. in 1916. His first position was with the Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Co. in East Pittsburg, Penn., where he was enrolled in one of the company’s student engineering courses from 1916 to 1917. With the intervention of the World War, Mr. Anderson enlisted in the United States army, was sent to an officers’ training camp at Fort Niagara, N.Y., an aviation school in Ithaca, N.Y., and to Oxford, England, to complete his aviation studies. He was commissioned a first lieutenant in the United States Air Service and served at the front from July to November, 1918, when he was shot down inside the German lines and captured. He was taken to a German hospital and prison camp at Mons, Belgium, but escaped with four other American officers. After a thrilling and hazardous journey through the German line and Belgium, Lieutenant Anderson reached Holland and was sent back to England and home for discharge in January, 1919. He rested and recuperated for a few months, and in the fall of 1919 took a position with the Isko Company in Chicago, manufacturers of household refrigerating machines, where he was first in charge of the research laboratory and later chief engineer. From 1921 to 1923 he was chief engineer with the McClellan Refrigerating Co. in Chicago. Born June 6, 1894, in Honolulu, Mr. Anderson is the son of Dr. Robert Willis and Susan Alice (Young) Anderson. In 1919 he married Margaret Leith Center of Honolulu, and they have two children, Robert Alexander Anderson, Jr., and David Leith Anderson. Mr. Anderson is a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity, Eta Kappa Nu honorary engineering society, American Society of Refrigerating Engineers, Oahu Country Club, and is chairman of the Americanism Committee of the American Legion. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/hi/statewide/bios/anderson95bs.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.poppet.org/hifiles/ File size: 3.7 Kb