Robert E. Carlson

1930 - 2025 Our father, Bob Carlson, had a generous heart he could not contain and a frank demeanor he could not restrain. He was funny, opinionated, politically engaged, handsome, and impossible not to like.
Born in Brooklyn, NY, on October 11, 1930, he became a Dodgers fan the same day. His parents were Lenore (Hanrahan) and Harry Carlson; his sister, Lenore, arrived a few years later. In 1940, the family moved to San Mateo, California. Bob swam and played basketball for San Mateo High School, bagged groceries at a neighborhood market, and worked as a lifeguard at the community pool.
He transferred from a community college to the University of Oregon to play basketball for the Ducks, but didn't survive the coach's cuts. Instead, he refereed intramural games and worked at a lumberyard in Eugene while finishing his degree. By the time he graduated, the Korean War was underway, and he was drafted into the Army, serving as an intelligence specialist on Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost island, interrogating Japanese fishermen about Soviet vessels.
Back in California, Bob enrolled at UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco on the GI Bill and graduated first in his class. He was admitted to the California Bar in 1959, not long after he married Billie Bamber, a San Francisco schoolteacher and former Rose Parade princess. They moved to Los Angeles, where Bob joined a downtown firm as an associate. Within a year, Billie was diagnosed with cancer; Bob cared for her during the final months of her life. After she died, Bob took leave from the firm and enrolled in an LLM program at Harvard Law School.
Nearing the end of his time in Cambridge, while attending Easter services at the Newman Center, he met a beautiful and brilliant graduate student named Maureen Donnelly from Newton Centre, MA. Bob fell in love instantly. They were engaged within a week and married by August. The couple moved to Los Angeles, where Bob rejoined his firm as a partner, and eventually they settled in Pasadena. In the late 1960s, Bob and two colleagues founded Agnew, Miller & Carlson, which grew into a significant force in the Los Angeles legal world. As the firm grew, Bob relished teaching young associates. He was revered as a mentor, but his style drew well-deserved, humorous skewering. At annual firm retreats, the associates lampooned the founding partners in their homegrown skits, rechristening the firm "Addled, Muddled, and Quarrelsome."
In the late 1980s, he joined Paul Hastings, where he chaired the Business Law Department and served on the firm's executive committee, retiring after fifty years of practice. He served as President of the Los Angeles County Bar Association and held senior positions in the American Bar Association. He was especially proud of his work with the Skid Row Housing Trust, which he chaired in its founding years, and the Trust for Public Land, on whose board he served for decades. He and Maureen were committed Democrats who supported George McGovern, fair housing, school desegregation, and farm-workers' rights, and they fiercely opposed the Vietnam War. Both proudly appeared on Nixon's Enemies List.
Bob and Maureen raised four children-John, Katie, Lizzie, and Robert Jr.-in a craftsman house on Prospect Boulevard, above the Rose Bowl. The house was rarely quiet. Family, friends, neighbors, exchange students, and passing travelers all found their way through the door.
In 2016, Bob and Maureen retired to Villa Gardens, where he made quick friends with fellow residents and the staff and continued his activism through service on multiple committees. He also continued to exercise his love of language by reading and writing poetry, listening to Irish music, singing in the Villa Gardens choir, and writing insightful newsletters on political and legal issues of the day.
He died peacefully a couple days after Thanksgiving at age 95, survived by his four children and their spouses, eight grandchildren, his sister Lenore, and his dear friend, Bob Gillespie. Our family is deeply grateful to the staff at Villa Gardens, the hospice team, and especially his three extraordinary caregivers, who laughed easily with him, appreciated his humor, and cared for him with genuine love and remarkable patience.
Memorial service at 2 p.m. on May 23, 2026, at All Saints Church in Pasadena.