Valedictory and In Appreciation: Bob Pence

I was sorry to learn of Bob Pence's death.  Mr. Pence passed away at his West Central home on Saturday.

He was known to Fort Wayne Observed readers for his marvelous photographic skill.  Most notably, Bob's photos of the 2008 snowfall in West Central drew a well-deserved deluge of favorable comments.

Bob also provided FWOb with photographs of an all-too common occurrence near his residence: vehicles that couldn't make the curve on W. Washington just past the Swinney Homestead. He was still chonicling those accidents this year.

You may see a trove of his work at RobertPence.com.

He served in the US Air Force, was a long-time employee of General Electric, and finished his career with Lincoln National Life Insurance.

Bob was a native of Bluffton and his funeral will be held in his hometown at the Goodwin Memorial Chapel. You may read his obituary here.

During his life, Bob Pence gave a gift of allowing many others to see Fort Wayne how his eyes viewed it.  When the first substantial snowfall of this winter visits, try to view our city the way Robert Pence would see it.

Comments

[Scott Spaulding]

I enjoyed speaking with Bob whenever we crossed paths.

Like me, he had a penchant for taking pictures of cityscapes and I will miss his contributions.

[Alex Jokay]

I bought a copy of Bob's award-winning photo of the courthouse dome at a charity auction, had it beautifully framed and gave it to my parents as a gift and it's one of the artworks they treasure most. It had been the Indiana Landmarks Foundation photo of the year back in the early '00s and has graced the covers of magazines.

His web site contains many interesting images, although he didn't upload a lot of the shots of forgotten buildings and streetscapes captured in Fort Wayne and other locales over the last 50-60 years because they hadn't been digitized. I don't know who has access to his collection but it's my earnest hope that someone who does will offer to allow a public retrospective of his work one day. It's a veritable catalog of local history, much of it breathtaking to behold.