Snyder Family 2016 - Person Sheet
NameRobert Wallace “Bob” Beckwith 
Birth25 Jul 1919
Death24 Oct 2009
Spouses
Birth8 Feb 1920, Burns, Harney Co., Oregon
FatherEmulus Roy Brown (1888-1975)
MotherBessie B. Brown (1897-1950)
Marriage14 Oct 1984, Los Angeles, Los Angeles Co., California
ChildrenBarbara
Notes for Robert Wallace “Bob” Beckwith
Epilogue | Robert Wallace Beckwith
Inventor Robert Beckwith thrived on the theoretical edge
Andrew Meacham, Times Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 4, 2009 6:24pm
LARGO — Robert Beckwith, the owner of a successful electric company, was at home on the fringes of science.
RELATED NEWS/ARCHIVE
While his employees made devices for generators, he was trying to levitate a quarter. While they were listening to customers, he was driving rods in the ground, listening for earthquakes in the Pacific Ocean.
The 125 employees of Beckwith Electric Co. don't mind if Mr. Beckwith, who died Oct. 25 at 90, lived on the theoretical edge. The 42-year-old company he started hasn't had layoffs in more than a decade.
He invented six of the products his company sells, including a 1990s precursor to the "smart grid" technology envisioned today.
"There was always an intensity in Bob," said engineer Drew Craig, 55. "He had these ideas, and these ideas burned in him."
Mr. Beckwith admired turn-of-the-century inventor Nikola Tesla, who introduced powering machinery with alternating current, a key component in the industrial revolution. He shared Tesla's fascination with magnetism and time travel, but couldn't get a magnetic coil to levitate a coin.
"The joke around the office was, maybe he should have used a dime instead of a quarter," said his son, Tom Beckwith, the company's chief executive.
Mr. Beckwith grew up in Kent, Ohio, an only child in a family with traceable roots to the Mayflower-era American colonies. He worked for General Electric before founding Beckwith Electric in 1967, which designs and manufactures devices for generators and transformers used by utility companies. A tornado destroyed the building in 1992, an event Mr. Beckwith calmly declared an "opportunity to rebuild."
He obtained 30 patents over the years, most of them for nuts-and-bolts methods of regulating electrical current. In recent years he was working on a way to predict earthquakes by measuring underground electrical vibrations. Mr. Beckwith had collected data that seemed to show a pattern between rumblings in the ground — as far away as the Pacific — and electrical signals received.
"We saw that we were getting vibrations that appeared to have some correlation to seismic events," Craig said. If the electrical field around the earth (discovered by Tesla) reacts to shifts in the earth, it could allow for advance warning for earthquakes, Mr. Beckwith believed.
Away from work, Mr. Beckwith and his second wife, Evelyn, enjoyed yearly trips to New Mexico, where he looked for Hopi art at an annual festival and in villages. The paintings he brought back hang on his office walls, interspersed with Mr. Beckwith's own artwork: including a drawing of an iron bridge that emerges from a mountainside and stretches across a gorge — until it stops in midair, suspended by a couple of balloons.
Andrew Meacham can be reached at (727) 892-2248 or ameacham@sptimes.com.
.Biography
Robert Wallace Beckwith
Born: July 25, 1919.
Died: Oct. 25, 2009.
Survivors: Wife, Evelyn Bortner-Beckwith; son, Tom, and his wife, Liddora; daughter, Barbara Anderson; step-children, Marty Orosz and Robert Bortner; three grandchildren; and four stepgrandchildren.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/obituaries/inventor-r...retical-edge/1049445
Inventor Robert Beckwith thrived on the theoretical edge
Andrew Meacham, Times Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 4, 2009 6:24pm
LARGO — Robert Beckwith, the owner of a successful electric company, was at home on the fringes of science.
RELATED NEWS/ARCHIVE
While his employees made devices for generators, he was trying to levitate a quarter. While they were listening to customers, he was driving rods in the ground, listening for earthquakes in the Pacific Ocean.
The 125 employees of Beckwith Electric Co. don't mind if Mr. Beckwith, who died Oct. 25 at 90, lived on the theoretical edge. The 42-year-old company he started hasn't had layoffs in more than a decade.
He invented six of the products his company sells, including a 1990s precursor to the "smart grid" technology envisioned today.
"There was always an intensity in Bob," said engineer Drew Craig, 55. "He had these ideas, and these ideas burned in him."
Mr. Beckwith admired turn-of-the-century inventor Nikola Tesla, who introduced powering machinery with alternating current, a key component in the industrial revolution. He shared Tesla's fascination with magnetism and time travel, but couldn't get a magnetic coil to levitate a coin.
"The joke around the office was, maybe he should have used a dime instead of a quarter," said his son, Tom Beckwith, the company's chief executive.
Mr. Beckwith grew up in Kent, Ohio, an only child in a family with traceable roots to the Mayflower-era American colonies. He worked for General Electric before founding Beckwith Electric in 1967, which designs and manufactures devices for generators and transformers used by utility companies. A tornado destroyed the building in 1992, an event Mr. Beckwith calmly declared an "opportunity to rebuild."
He obtained 30 patents over the years, most of them for nuts-and-bolts methods of regulating electrical current. In recent years he was working on a way to predict earthquakes by measuring underground electrical vibrations. Mr. Beckwith had collected data that seemed to show a pattern between rumblings in the ground — as far away as the Pacific — and electrical signals received.
"We saw that we were getting vibrations that appeared to have some correlation to seismic events," Craig said. If the electrical field around the earth (discovered by Tesla) reacts to shifts in the earth, it could allow for advance warning for earthquakes, Mr. Beckwith believed.
Away from work, Mr. Beckwith and his second wife, Evelyn, enjoyed yearly trips to New Mexico, where he looked for Hopi art at an annual festival and in villages. The paintings he brought back hang on his office walls, interspersed with Mr. Beckwith's own artwork: including a drawing of an iron bridge that emerges from a mountainside and stretches across a gorge — until it stops in midair, suspended by a couple of balloons.
Andrew Meacham can be reached at (727) 892-2248 or ameacham@sptimes.com.
.Biography
Robert Wallace Beckwith
Born: July 25, 1919.
Died: Oct. 25, 2009.
Survivors: Wife, Evelyn Bortner-Beckwith; son, Tom, and his wife, Liddora; daughter, Barbara Anderson; step-children, Marty Orosz and Robert Bortner; three grandchildren; and four stepgrandchildren.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/obituaries/inventor-r...retical-edge/1049445
Notes for Evelyn Marian (Spouse 1)
92. . . lived in Everett, Washington in July of 1932 according to the obituary of Robert F. Brown, in the Kendrick Gazette, July 29, 1932
Evelyn Brown [e. june brown's sister] went to live with George and Marie (Brown) Jones sometime in the 30’s.
. . . resident of Banks, Oregon in Nov., 194397
---------------
2794 Camden Rd.
Clearwater, Florida
33759
-------------
1930 United States Federal Census about Evelyn M Brown
Name: Evelyn M Brown
Gender: Female
Birth Year: abt 1920
Birthplace: Oregon
Race: White
Home in 1930:
Milton, Columbia, Oregon
Marital Status: Single
Relation to Head of House: Daughter
Father's Name: Eber Brown [actually her dad was Emulus Brown]
Father's Birthplace: Maine
Mother's Name: Marie M Brown
Mother's Birthplace:
Oregon
Neighbors:
View others on page
Household Members:
Name Age
Eber Brown 45
Marie M Brown 39
Donald W Brown 13
A Margaret Brown 12
Evelyn M Brown 10
Virginia M Brown 4 [4 8/12]
Evelyn Brown [e. june brown's sister] went to live with George and Marie (Brown) Jones sometime in the 30’s.
. . . resident of Banks, Oregon in Nov., 194397
---------------
2794 Camden Rd.
Clearwater, Florida
33759
-------------
1930 United States Federal Census about Evelyn M Brown
Name: Evelyn M Brown
Gender: Female
Birth Year: abt 1920
Birthplace: Oregon
Race: White
Home in 1930:
Milton, Columbia, Oregon
Marital Status: Single
Relation to Head of House: Daughter
Father's Name: Eber Brown [actually her dad was Emulus Brown]
Father's Birthplace: Maine
Mother's Name: Marie M Brown
Mother's Birthplace:
Oregon
Neighbors:
View others on page
Household Members:
Name Age
Eber Brown 45
Marie M Brown 39
Donald W Brown 13
A Margaret Brown 12
Evelyn M Brown 10
Virginia M Brown 4 [4 8/12]