Robert T. Foote

Passed away March 12, 2014 in Travelers Rest, S.C., succumbing to esophageal cancer. Robert was born January 20, 1926 in Winnsboro, Texas and grew up in the hardscrabble West Texas hamlet of Petersburg. He was the last surviving sibling of a family of four brothers and a sister. Coming of age during wartime, Robert joined the Naval Air Corps during World War II, and was selected for naval officer training. Before receiving his officer’s commission in 1946, he attended universities in Oklahoma and Mississippi, playing quarterback for the football teams and excelling at mathematics. In Korea, Robert served as communication officer in charge aboard the U.S.S. Winston, then returned to West Texas to receive his masters degree in education from Texas Tech University. Thus began a long career of teaching and coaching in the Texas towns of Petersburg, Lockney, Quitman and finally, Dallas, in 1954, when Robert took the post of math teacher and head football coach at L.V. Stockard in Oak Cliff. During his tenure, Robert guided Stockard to four Dallas city championships. In 1956, he married Marjorie White, whose life was cut short five years later by leukemia. In 1963, art teacher Nancy Stewart came into his life, a union that lasted 36 years and bore two children, daughter Cydney and son Kelly. Nancy drew the creative, artistic talents out of Robert. From their home workshop in Dallas, they established a custom sign-making and woodworking business and crafted a veritable playground of handmade toys for their children. In 1970 his coaching duties were relegated to little league as he sacrificed his beloved football sidelines for an assistant principal position at J.N. Ervin Jr. High in East Dallas. After Nancy passed away in 1999, Robert bade farewell to Texas for the greener golf courses of South Carolina. In Travelers Rest, he cultivated close friendships, involved himself with the church, planted flowers and doted on his only grandchild Zachary. Teacher, coach, gardener, golfer, caregiver, woodworker, artist, church deacon, charitable altruist and loving patriarch, Robert will be remembered for his dry wit, mild manner and old fashioned humility. He was never far from family, because he found new family wherever he traveled. A small service for Robert will be held Monday, March 17, 1 pm, at Cross Plains Baptist Church in Travelers Rest. Memorial donations may be sent in his name to Cancer Society of Greenville County, 113 Mills Avenue, Greenville, S.C., 29605.

Robert T. Foote

January 20, 1926 - March 12, 2014