Robert Fitch Dreesen

1929 - 2025

Robert Fitch Dreesen

March 28, 1929 - January 24, 2025

Chapel Hill, North Carolina - Robert Fitch Dreesen of Chapel Hill, NC passed away on January 24th, 2025 at his home. He was 95 years old.

Robert was born in Akron, Ohio to Harriet Hutchins and Robert Hopton. His parents divorced and he was subsequently raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico where his mother ran a boarding house during the Great Depression. When his mother remarried Boyd Dreesen, Robert was adopted by Boyd, who worked as a civil engineer for the Navajo and Hopi people.

Like the lives of most Americans, the life of the Dreesen family was disrupted by World War II. Boyd became an Army combat engineer at age 34. With Boyd in the Army, Harriet and Robert moved to California where Harriet worked at the Naval Ordnance Test Station in Inyokern. In high school in California, Robert took the entrance exams for the University of Chicago, which accepted anyone who could pass the exams, regardless of age and whether or not they had completed high school. He went to University of Chicago at the age of sixteen without finishing high school.

His college career was marked by two life-changing events: joining the Naval ROTC and meeting his future wife Jean Dunkle, from Sunbury PA. At graduation, he began his 30-year career as a naval aviator. He flew combat missions in Korea. After that war, he flew in an early Navy nuclear weapons squadron with the city of Vladivostok as his potential target though, mercifully, he never had to fly over Vladivostok. He subsequently became a test pilot. He attended the Navy Postgraduate School in Monterey, earning a Master's in Electrical Engineering. He then flew in reconnaissance over Vietnam from 1964 to 1967, ultimately commanding VQ-1, a 1000-person reconnaissance squadron based in Japan and flying from Danang.

In his later career, he worked in weapons procurement in the Pentagon (NAVALEX). His second command, from 1973-1976, was the Fleet Electronic Warfare Support Group in Norfolk, a war games unit which worked to maintain readiness for Naval Air squadrons in time of peace.

Robert loved to fly, and he loved his family. He also cherished the American democratic process that directed the Armed Forces. He and Jean took their daughters to see anti-war protests in the late 1960's. They housed anti-war protestors in their suburban Arlington home. They brought their daughters to Resurrection City, an anti-poverty encampment on the Washington Mall led by the Poor People's Campaign of Martin Luther King. All this they did in celebration of American democracy, which allowed Robert and Jean to read anti-war literature, vote for peace, campaign for Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern and still be part of the Armed Forces.

Robert retired from the Navy in 1979. He and Jean remodeled the kitchen and both bathrooms, but home improvement just wasn't enough for him, so he went to Catholic University to study Library Science. After completing Master's degree, he worked for the next 26 years as a volunteer research librarian at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, a career almost as long as his Navy career. He and Jean moved to North Carolina in 2006 for a second attempt at retirement.

Robert was pre-deceased by his beloved Jean who died in 2016. Both Robert and Jean were grateful for the wonderful care they received from UNC Hospice. Robert is survived by his daughters Elizabeth Dreesen of Chapel Hill and Anne Dreesen of Thorndike Maine, their spouses Gary Gala and Alex Mann and his grandchildren Samuel Page and Matthias Mann. In lieu of flowers, consider a donation to Smithsonian Institution, Smithsonian Libraries and Archives or UNC Hospice. The family anticipates inurnment in Arlington National Cemetery.