Robert Z. Kaplan

1928 - 2023

Robert Z. Kaplan

"He is an awful rascal, but I do love him. He is the cutest thing."

- Ms. Yoder

Bobby Kaplan's Third-Grade Teacher (1936)

Robert Z. Kaplan was born in Toledo on November 16, 1928 to Samuel and Ethel Zanville Kaplan. From the time he was born, he could not be contained. He would break out of his crib so frequently that it had to be built to the ceiling and locked. Among the most poignant, if ultimately misguided, observations on his early report cards were the check marks showing that he was "friendly and courteous to others â€" very seldom" and "exercises emotional control â€" very seldom." Bobby brandished these, and other misunderstandings of his true nature, with humor and pride.

His work ethic, drive for independence, and quest for fun led him to work outside the home from an early age. His first job, undertaken at age 13, was working behind a drug-store counter making sodas and sundaes. But he found more joy working for a family friend, selling handkerchiefs and neckties, a job he described as "my first experience with larceny." Assigned to the back room, he would oversee the processing of handkerchiefs for sale. He affixed to each of these items, which were manufactured in Wauseon, Ohio, a label that read "Pure Irish Linen." He worked also setting pins in a bowling alley, sorting mail at the post office, and running his own concessions business, which he documented in almost pathologically detailed logs that recorded not only the hour-by-hour finances of the business but its trends, growth opportunities, and marketing challenges.

His life-long trait of distributing information on only a need-to-know basis was evidenced early on. He worked for a time at a neighborhood butcher shop, a job his mother learned of only when she entered the shop to buy that week's meat and saw her only son working behind the counter.

Bobby graduated from Jesup Scott High School in 1946. He entered Ohio State University that fall and, after graduation, entered law school there. He failed Criminal Law on his first attempt, but, as he would happily admit and as others, including the late Judge Melvin Resnick, a life-long friend, would confirm, he mastered poker during round-the-clock games lasting all weekend, leaving him bleary-eyed and unprepared for class, but well-funded for the upcoming week.

His legal education was interrupted by honorable service in the United States Army during the Korean War. He voluntarily enlisted in the Army for two related and characteristic reasons. First, he thought the automatic exemption for those enrolled in higher education made the draft unfair; and, second, he was eager to see the world and, as he would say, "check out what was going on out there."

Bobby regularly delighted in describing the frequent threats by his commanding officers to send him to the brig. But he served productively in Army Counter-Intelligence, and, after honorable discharge in 1953, returned to Ohio State to complete his Juris Doctor degree. Bobby then returned to Toledo in 1955 to begin the practice of law with his father, with whom he practiced until his father's death in 1974. Bobby, of course, continued to practice, considering (but not acting on) retirement only in late 2022. But even then, his ceaseless, incurable optimism prevailed â€" his last professional acts included ordering 2,000 business cards and renewing his bar registration for two years.

In the 67+ years of his practice, Bobby left an incommensurable mark on Toledo. Even the most comprehensive effort to describe his work and accomplishments, and their pervasive, enduring effects, would inevitably fall far short of the full truth. He will live on in the stories that those who knew him best, indeed those who knew him at all or even heard about him third-hand, will be telling for as long as humans are able to communicate.

Here is a small selection of his activities:

Bobby's primary legal work focused on civil rights, criminal defense, and the representation of injured persons.

Bobby served as a board member of the NAACP, as well as Chairman of its Legal Committee for approximately fifteen years. (With his characteristic blend of truth, exaggeration, and humor, he always claimed to have volunteered to be on the board because he had no clients.) He actively worked as a member of the Lawyers Constitutional Defense Committee. In that role, he worked on-site in both Alabama and Mississippi on three separate occasions between in 1965 and 1966, defending civil-rights workers who were charged with crimes and helping devise the strategies that would animate the civil-rights movement. It is deeply fitting that Bobby died at the age of 94 on the 94th anniversary of the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr.

The lawyers and others who volunteered for this work faced enormous danger. One night, as Bobby was driving, alone, through rural Alabama toward Mississippi, two men in a pick-up truck, replete with a gun rack loaded with rifles, forced him to pull over. One of the men approached the car and asked Bobby what organization he was with. In an indelible reflection of Bobby's quick wit and blazing intuition, he said, in an instant, "the FBI." They let him go.

While in Alabama, Bobby married Ann Guerin, who survives him and who is more central to his life than can be described. Those who spent time with the two of them were privileged to witness a long-standing dynamic of affection, respect, and transcendent intelligence.

Bobby worked as legal counsel for the Toledo chapter of the Black Panther Party during the 1960s and 1970s. In addition, he served as co-chairman of the Toledo Fair Housing Committee and was a member of the board of the Toledo Council for Business, which assisted minority members of the local community in becoming business owners.

Bobby was a board member of the Toledo Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and received its award as Man of the Year in 1968. He also received the Young Leadership Award of the Jewish Welfare Foundation in 1965, an acknowledgment of his long devotion to the United Jewish Appeal.

In 1997, Bobby was recognized with the James A. Jackson Foundation A.S.S.I.S.T. award, given to individuals who have shown a commitment to youth and to the Toledo community. He received the Distinguished Toledo Lawyer Award from the University of Toledo Law Alumni Association in 2000, a long-overdue recognition that, as was observed at the time, reflected more credit on the Association than it did on Bobby. More recently, Bobby served as a member of the advisory board to the Toledo Urban Federal Credit Union, as well as a board member and chair of the legal committee of the Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) program, an organization that he helped to transform with his energy and vision. He received the CASA Community Advocate Award in 2013. And in 2019, the African American Legacy Project recognized Bobby with its Local Legend award.

Bobby's proclivities for friendship, mentoring, and unqualified support of those he believed in produced countless acolytes. His longest surviving close friends in the legal community are Richard Walinski, whom he met on the first day of the celebrated McClellan case and with whom Bobby sustained a fifty-year devoted professional and personal friendship; and Jon Richardson, whom Bobby met in the late 60s when Jon was teaching high-school English at Scott High School, and who from that day till the end stayed close to Bobby, working alongside him at the office and filling his life with stories both humorous and profound. It is fitting that on the last day of Bobby's life, Jon regaled not only Bobby but a gathering of family members who loved him with an anthology of stories curated over 50 years.

To the end, Bobby's practice also included long-time dear friend and colleague Pete Rost, his son Sam, and son-in-law Fritz Byers. In the later years of Bobby's practice, Sam was his constant companion.

Bobby's other interests included tennis, which he played with a zeal and willpower that more than made up for his lack of skill; playing the kazoo and harmonica; and writing brief letters that, after the signature block, typically contained pages of post-scripts in which, at last, Bobby would get to the point.

Bobby was preceded in death by his parents, Sam and Ethel; and his sisters Doris and Janice. He is survived by his sister, Mary Bloch (Ronald, deceased); his wife of 56 years, Ann; his three children, Katherine Byers (Fritz) of Waterville, Ohio, Sarah A. Kaplan (Robert Aldrich) of Easton, Connecticut, Samuel Z. Kaplan of Lambertville, Michigan, and eight grandchildren: Meredith, Abby, Madeline, Lilly, Sadie, Eleanor, Henry, and Samuel, and many beloved nieces and nephews.

The doctor's note from his check-up as a two-year-old reads, "That boy must be conquered." Wishful thinking. Bobby conquered life and turned it into his personal theater, which was forever full of friendship, family, good works, and fun.