Robert P. Brewer

HENDERSON -Cdr. Robert P. Brewer, 91, USN, retired, Henderson native and resident, died in his sleep at the family home on Clark Street on Thursday, February 22, 2007.

Funeral services will be held at 2 p.m. Sunday, February 25, at the J. M. White Funeral Home Chapel, by Dr. Paul A. Baxley of the First Baptist Church. Burial will follow at Elmwood Cemetery with full military honors. His pallbearers are his six grandsons, nephew William F. Brewer, Jr, Urbana-Champagne, Illinois, and Thomas J. O'Neal, Cary.

Born in the Zene Street Hospital on December 13, 1915, he died after a life of incomparable devotion to his roles as an aviator, a journalist, a teacher, and husband and father.

Robert Palmer Brewer was the fifth and last child of Charles Stephen Brewer, of Pittsboro, Chatham County, and Eva Alton Hart, of Noble County, Indiana. The family moved to Henderson from Carthage in 1910, living in the Vance Hotel, which his father owned and managed until his death in 1922, when the Clark Street home was occupied for the first time.

Cdr. Brewer, completed high school in Henderson, worked for the Department of Agriculture in Vance County and then as a sports reporter with Robert Ruark at the Washington Daily News, Washington, D.C. He enrolled in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he graduated in 1939 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism. He was a superintendent at Camp Croft, Spartanburg, S.C., when the U.S. entered World War II, and joined military service as a Naval aviator with the rank of Lieutenant, j.g. During the war, he was a flight instructor at Pensacola Naval Air Station until 1944, when he was assigned to an operational squadron of Corsairs that trained at Jacksonville NAS and then on the island of Hawaii as a carrier-based squadron, at the end of the war.

An introduction by his longtime friend, Tom "Snuffy" Smith to Percye Venable Burwell of Oxford, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William Morton Burwell, led to their marriage on September 26, 1946. During his careers, first as a military officer and then as a journalist and editor, the family lived in Virginia, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Florida, California, Italy, and Maryland. His 24-year career as a Naval officer included duties as an aviator on the high seas on the aircraft carriers U.S.S. Franklin D. Roosevelt, Midway, Intrepid and Saratoga. During this time, as leader of an all-weather night fighter squadron, he was the first North Carolina native entrusted with Special Weapons. He also served as NROTC instructor at Duke University, Durham; as the founding editor for Approach, the Navy's pilot safety publication, Norfolk, Va.; as the first aviation instructor at the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, Calif.; as Schools Officer for military dependent schools, Naples, Italy; and senior speechwriter for the Chief of Naval Operations, Pentagon.

Upon retirement from the Navy in 1966, he was named editor for the Proceedings of the U.S. Naval Institute, Annapolis, Md., and later was made the Institute's executive director and, simultaneously, director of the U.S. Naval Institute Press. He retired from the Naval Institute in 1979, and returned in 1989 to the family home on Clark Street, which had been occupied continuously first by his mother, and then by the family of his brother, William F. Brewer and his wife, "Dutch" and daughter, Paula.

Any description of the life of Bob Brewer should also include a salute to the enduring friendships with Cody and Maggie Sherar of Carmel Valley, Calif., "Boots" Liles, Mission Viejo, Calif., and Jim Weimer, Fla.; and with the families of Tom Smith, Pat Bobbitt and Buddy Petty, and Donna Bobbitt, Bill Alston, the ladies at Betty B's, all of Henderson. The family thanks them, and his caring neighbors who have watched over him, and those who rendered him their professional services over the years and cared for him, and all those who ever joined him around his goldfish pond to listen to his stories.

Cdr. Brewer is a member of First Baptist Church of Henderson, and of the Board of Directors for the H. Leslie Perry Memorial Library Foundation.

He is survived by the children of his marriage to his beloved wife of 57 years, Percye, who preceded him in death in 2003, Catharine Brewer Sternbergh and husband, William of Greensboro; Robert Palmer Brewer, Jr. and wife, Lou Kelley Brewer, of Fort Worth, Texas; and Donna Brewer O'Neal, of Cary; grandsons, Travis Palmer Snipes (Tina) of Apex, Nathaniel Sternbergh (Megan) of Reno, Nev., Brewer Sternbergh (Stephanie) and Xenophon Sternbergh, of Greensboro, Samuel Brewer (Helen) of Raleigh, and Michael John O'Neal, of Cary; granddaughters, Sarah Violette Brewer, Ft. Worth, and Caitlin Brooks O'Neal, Cary; great-grandson, Gavin Palmer Snipes, Apex; and expected great-grandsons, Clark W. Brewer, Raleigh, and Eian Brewer Sternbergh, Greensboro.

Surviving also are his sister-in-law, Gertrude Burwell, of Woodbridge, Va.; his first cousin, Georgia B. Tilley, of Raleigh; and many beloved nieces and nephews.

In addition to his wife and parents, he was preceded in death by his sister, Catharine Brewer Snead; brothers, Charles, Stephen, and William F. Brewer.

The family will receive friends from 7 until 8:30 Saturday night at the J. M. White Funeral Home, in Henderson.

Flowers are welcome, and memorials can be made to Vance County Humane Society, P.O. Box 1552, Henderson, N.C. 27536 in the name of "Trouble", the first of many beloved dogs.

Arrangements are by J. M. White Funeral Home.

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