Robert Walton "Bob" Spring

December 24, 1918-July 3, 2012
Robert Walton and his twin brother Ira Lou Spring, were born in Jamestown, NY in 1918. It was a "double surprise package" for everyone but the midwife (and half the town) according to family recollection. It was thought in those days that advance warning of coming twins might provide a dangerous shock and upset the delicate condition of a mother-to-be.
Collaboration between the Spring boys began early, from catastrophically "redesigning" the furniture of their older sister's dollhouse at age three, to somewhat more constructive family projects of goat carts, cubby houses and nature paths as they grew older. A love of the outdoors inspired by Boy Scout hikes and family trips eventually lead to combining their love of nature with early photography ventures as twelve year olds who had been gifted with cameras during the 50th Anniversary Eastman Kodak campaign in 1930.
The local Kodak company distributor's decision to allow the twins a camera each, rather than designate "one camera per birthday" was pivotal in allowing the budding photographers the opportunity to work together and to explore their own particular interests. This came to the fore later in life as their interests diverged and eventually developed in different and equally valuable directions.
World War Two first sent Bob and Ira in different directions, "all expenses paid, $30 a day salary, just once a month" as Bob liked to reminisce. Ira was flown off to the South Pacific to undertake aerial photography. Bob left for a tour of Africa, Sicily and Germany with an army field hospital X-ray department (photography of a different sort).He also moonlighted as the unofficial Unit Photographer when medical duties permitted, recording fascinating details of people and places wherever he was stationed, setting up makeshift film development quarters and trading military issued cigarette rations for camera film. Sadly, his photographs often documented the brutal reality of war. This included poignantly young German casualties that his medical unit cared for towards the end of the war, and the entry of US medical units into Dachau to aid survivors. Some of his photographs were gifted to the Holocaust Museum in Melbourne Australia in the 1990's.
Perhaps it was these experiences of war that influenced the development of a divergent direction for Bob. He and his wife Norma never lost their love of the outdoors and continued with Ira to add to Bob and Ira Spring's outdoor photographic stock, Seattle Times Pictorial spreads, freelance articles and books. Alaska was a favorite subject, of which they never tired…Bob photographing its people, wildlife and spectacular wilderness, and Norma writing books and countless articles about their beloved state to the north. But when a bout with cancer and subsequent leg amputation for Norma slowed the rugged pace of outdoor photography for them in the 1960's, international photography and travel writing, with its potential to bring people together peaceably, seemed a natural area of development.
Bob and Norma joined the Society of American Travel Writers, speaking and writing compellingly about the power of international travel to create understanding and bonds between people, even when world governments were at odds. The 1970's saw Bob and Norma active researchers in the development of Alaska Airlines charted flights to the USSR during the Cold War. Their convivial "people skills', networking and incidentally, their portable bar, (known affectionately in travel writing circles as "The Red Bag of Courage"), were as vital as their photo-journalist skills to opening a back door to peace through international travel during these fear and suspicion-filled years.
The last Spring of his generation left, Bob outlived the original iconic Bob and Ira Spring fame to spend quiet years of retirement in Bellingham near his children and grandchildren following Norma's death in 2004. He kept his photographer's "trigger finger" active, snapping pictures from his wheel chair, his photo sessions punctuated by his constant refrainof "Just one more..." so familiar to his models as he sought to get "the perfect angle" for each shot. For the last seven years of his life, with the help of his personal secretary and project manager, Leslie Shankman, Bob entertained new generations of family, as well as fellow residents in several Bellingham assisted living and care facilities, with slide shows and films of his life's work.
Bob Spring is survived by his three children, Terry, Jacquie and Tracy, ten grandchildren and six great-grandchildren who reside in such diverse cities as Seattle, Selah, Bellingham, New York City, Melbourne and Sydney Australia. As well as this living legacy of off-Springs, a final "just one more" photo lives on today. Anybody who has visited an airport in the US and some countries overseas has probably seen Bob's most widely viewed picture without knowing it, the smiling Eskimo right there on the tail of Alaska Airlines planes.
The family wishes to acknowledge the loving care provided to Bob by the outstanding staff at Highland Care Center in Bellingham and the supportive eldercare work of Leslie Shankman. WA. Memorial services will be announced at a later date.
Moles Farewell Tributes, Bellingham, Bayview Events Center