Obituary of Robert William Gooch

Robert “Bob” William Gooch of Colorado Springs, Colorado, age 86, died February 26, 2023.  He was among his family and his loving wife, with phone calls singing to him and talking to him shortly before he passed away in Memorial Central Hospital from complications from a rare form of Vasculitis.

Bob’s family was living in Cripple Creek, Colorado, but since the only doctor in town was usually drunk, he was more-safely born in Denver, Colorado. 

When Bob was about 3 years old, the mines nearly killed Bob’s father for the third time.  Joe Gooch decided he wanted to see his kids grow up, so he moved the family to California.  Bob was raised in Santa Cruz, California.  He went to a Catholic school through 6th grade, then went to Public School.  He joined DeMolay for several years.  

From his very early years, Bob was a natural engineer.  He loved to take things apart to see how they worked.  This got him in trouble when he took apart his parents’ mantel clock.  It was not so easily put back together! His parents finally got even when he was gifted with the same mantel clock in his later marriage to Pat LeVesque!  He planned to find a clock master to repair it.

He graduated from Santa Cruz High School in 1954 and attended Monterey Peninsula College before enlisting in the United States Army at Ft. Ord, was stationed at Ft. Monmouth, New Jersey, he was a Signal Corps instructor rank, SP5 (T) (E5) (P1) which is a "Specialist 5th Class".  In New Jersey, he met and married Dorothy Siddens and raised four step-children. 

Bob worked for four different electronic companies through the years.  He was employed for many years by Signetics in California as an electronics process engineer, also Hewlett-Packard where he designed a miniature keyboard vacuum for clean room usage.  He couldn’t patent it since he worked for H-P, but his parents were very proud of him.  After marrying Pat LeVesque in the mid- 1970s, he worked at Honeywell in Colorado Springs, Colorado then Signetics and Intel in the laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico until he retired.

Bob was a problem solver, finding a solution for each.  He wanted a bird feeder, so he installed a L-shaped plumbing pipe for the Hummingbirds.  When winter came, he put up a cage-like feeder full of peanut butter, seeds, oats and raisins.  The squirrels LOVED that and quickly ate most of it!  His solution to this was a stove pipe over the iron pipe.  Squirrels could smell the food and jump, but would quickly slide down the stove pipe each time. Problem solved!

When the Carver’s Museum wanted a pavilion built, Bob went deep into the woods to cut down large pine tree logs for the pillars and helped build the pavilion to enjoy picnics for the carvers and their families.

The Gooch backyard had a steep slope that Bob worked hard to terrace.   In the front yard, Bob created an earth mound with rock garden and a drip system for the mounds flowers and designed a sprinkler system for the lawn. 

After a bad hailstorm, Bob re-tiled the roof on our house.  Many neighbors were needing to do the same, so he helped a few to help re-tile their roofs, without expecting anything in return.  He was happiest when helping others.

When the temps hit 20 below zero one morning, Bob was the first to figure out how to get his truck started and helped several neighbors get theirs started so they could all get to work.

Bob was an avid reader, had fun writing stories, loved hiking, woodcarving, listening to classical music, rock hunting with his dad, fishing, photography, watching birds in nature, and beautifully carving birds out of wood. He loved dogs, puns, comic strips- Calvin and Hobbs, Peanuts, Far Side, For Better or Worse, etc.  He volunteered with Intel’s partners and supported Pat’s tree planting program for many years at Tree New Mexico.

He was preceded in death by his parents, Joe, and Barbara Gooch; and his sister, Doris Byers. 

Bob is survived by his loving wife and best friend, Pat Gooch; sister, Janet (David) Allard ; brother-in-law, Richard Meyer;  step-children, Debbie Taylor, Cricket (Terry) Morrow, Vivian (Ted) Baird; Rebecca (Don) Horst; Renee’ (Steve) Parks; Ray (Kerry Switzer) LeVesque; grandchildren, Jessica (Jason) Brown, Adam (Olivia Sieve) Horst, Michael and Ryan LeVesque, and Ajay (Allie) Silva; great grandchildren, Scarlett and Savannah Brown; nieces and nephews,  Kathy (Shane) Kirby, Greg (Emily) Meyer, Bithia (Aaron) Reed, Jennifer (Keith) Rode; grandnieces and nephews, McKenzie (Richard) Christiansen, Tallie, Sarah, Cody, Zachary, Andrew, Anna, Amanda Meyer, Sully and Olivia Reed, Abigail, and Noah Rode.

In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to one of the following organizations that were dear to Bob: https://www.anatomicalresearch.org;   or Plant a tree in Bob’s honor in your own yard or: donate to Tree New Mexico- https://treenm.com;  

A Celebration of Life for Bob Gooch will be held at a later date.
 

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