Robert Edward French

1924 - 2022

Robert Edward ("Bob") French, age 97, of Newport Beach, passed away Sunday March 13, 2022 in Mission Viejo, California. He was born December 28, 1924 to Merwin Andrew French and Marion Frances (Nolan) French in Birmingham, Alabama. He had one older brother, Merwin ("Mer"), and an older sister, Marjorie Ann, who predeceased him.
Bob grew up during the Great Depression living in Cristobal, Panama, and playing golf at Gatun Golf Course immediately adjacent to the Gatun Locks and Gatun Dam, often with his brother Mer and their life-long friend Dick Tawes. Bob's father, Merwin, had traveled to the U.S. Canal Zone in search of work with the Canal Zone government. Merwin went from a clerk in the Accounting Department to putting ships through the Canal as Dispatcher then as Supervisory Marine Traffic Controller, while his son, Bob, continued to hone his golf skills. While playing the Gatun Golf Course, military soldiers started laying out barbed wire around the Gatun Locks; the day the golf course closed, December 7, 1941.
Bob graduated from Cristobal High School in 1942 and enrolled at the University of Texas but World War II intervened. In May 1943, Bob joined the U.S. Navy and attended boot camp in San Diego. After attending Naval Training School (Radar Operators) in Point Loma, Bob was assigned to the brand-new USS Wintle (DE-25) as a Radarman and Sonarman for his 33-month tour of duty in the South Pacific during WWII. The USS Wintle primarily served as a hunter-killer radar picket destroyer escort performing air/surface radar and antisubmarine patrol in the South Pacific. The USS Wintle supported the invasion of the Marshall Islands and saw action at Peleliu, Guam, Saipan and searched the Eniwetok-Marianas shipping lanes for Japanese submarines. When the Japanese surrendered in August 1945, Bob was in San Francisco celebrating the end of 22 months of duty in the South Pacific and V-J Day where a raucous celebration began and did not end for three days. In March 1946, Bob was discharged from the U.S. Navy and returned to Cristobal, Panama, and the Gatun Golf Club.
After the war, Bob attended Canal Zone Junior College and was awarded a scholarship to the University of Chicago. Bob, instead of taking the scholarship, followed his older brother Mer to Syracuse University graduating in 1949. Bob again returned to the Canal Zone after college working odd jobs such as patrolling a tank farm at Fort Gulick and acting as a housing manager at the Coco Solo Submarine Base.
While visiting his friend Dick Tawes, Bob and Dick got a job to deliver a car from Tallahassee, Florida to Santa Monica, California. Since Dick's father lived in Long Beach the two young WWII veterans decided to make the trip to California. Upon arriving in Southern California, Bob needed to find a job so he walked into the Occidental Life Insurance office in Los Angeles and asked the Group Insurance Manager for a job. Occidental Life took a chance on the young tall (6'4") veteran and gave him an entry level job selling group insurance.
Through mutual friends of Dick Tawes, at a dance in Long Beach in 1953, Bob met his future bride, Mildred Edwina ("Millie") Falgren. Three months after they met, Bob was offered a supervisory opportunity for Occidental Life in Philadelphia. Not wanting to deal with a cross-country romance, Bob and Millie drove to Las Vegas with only a few friends in tow and got married. The next day they drove to Philadelphia.
Millie got a job as a secretary for the Annenberg-owned Philadelphia Inquirer and then as a model in New York City for the Ford Modeling Agency. Settling first in Collingswood, New Jersey, just outside of Philadelphia; and then in Levittown, Pennsylvania. Bob commuted to Philadelphia and Millie commuted to NYC, often bringing her young son, Michael, who was born in 1954, in tow. A second son, John, was born in 1958. Both Bob and Millie yearned to return to Southern California and jumped at the chance when Bob had the opportunity to transfer back to Los Angeles in 1959.
Bob, Millie and the two boys landed in the Los Angeles suburb of La Mirada; but only just after a year moved to a section of Los Angeles just Northwest of DTLA now known as Koreatown. A daughter, Patricia, was born in Los Angeles in 1961. In 1964, the growing family moved to the Hollywood Hills, just North of Franklin Avenue. A second daughter, Kathleen, was born in 1967. Living in the Hollywood Hills was not the best location to raise a young family so, in 1967, the family of six moved to Huntington Beach. Bob was still a golfer and Bob and Millie both took up tennis, big time, playing first at The Pacific Sands Cabana Club then Seacliff Tennis Club and the Balboa Bay Club Racquet Club in Newport Beach. Bob and Millie separated in 1984 and divorced in 1988. Bob focused on growing his insurance brokerage company, Robert E. French Insurance Services, Inc.
In 1988, in a scene right out of Joseph Wambaugh's novel, The Golden Orange, Bob met Ann Johnston, in the bar at the Balboa Bay Club. After a whirlwind romance Bob and Ann were married and settled in Dover Shores, living on a bluff overlooking the Upper Newport Bay. Bob and Ann hit the Newport Beach social circuit for several years. Bob continued to play tennis at the Racquet Club and golf at Newport Beach Country Club. Ann played cards regularly at the Country Club. In 2007, Bob and Ann sold their Dover Shores home and moved to Granville along the 9th fairway of Newport Beach Country Club. In 2015, Bob and Ann got divorced and Bob continued to live in Granville until the end of 2020. Bob continued to maintain his insurance license and ran his insurance business until the very end.
Bob is survived by sons Michael (Michelle) and John (Nancy); daughters Patricia French and Kathleen Hoerchner; and grandsons Sam and Max French.
Many thanks to the professionals at Assisting Hands Home Care, Vivante-by-the-Sea and Josie Teehankee, Camille and John of Alliance Senior Living in Mission Viejo who all supported our Dad.
A Celebration of Life to honor Bob will be scheduled at a later date.