Robert E ("Bob") Kennedy, Jr

Robert E ("Bob") Kennedy, Jr. died of natural causes Aug. 4, 2025, at the age of 87. Born in Chicago, Ill., he enjoyed a life of exploration, curiosity and commitment to those he loved. Enthralled by photography in high school, he initially attended the University of Missouri Columbia with the goal of becoming a photojournalist, but eventually found his  inquisitive mind focused on sociology.  In his freshman English class, he also found his eventual wife, Joyce, and after graduating in 1959, they married and moved to Manhattan for him to pursue a Masters degree in Sociology at Columbia University and for her to work at Life Magazine. For a decade, they lived an adventurous life in New York City, Dublin, France, and Berkeley, as he finished his Masters degree, fulfilled duties for the US Army, and then completed his PhD at UC Berkeley. His resultant book on Irish demography is still regarded as a classic, and was selected by the University of California in its Voices Revived program to be remain perpetually in print. Moving to the sociology department at the University of Minnesota in the late 1960s, he commuted 60 miles each way to a rural property they purchased near Rush City, Minn. In their 30 years there, they raised their son Robert and enjoyed many deep and lasting friendships. They also continued to satisfy their adventure bug by traveling  to Hong Kong, Japan, and across Europe, including a six month residency in Graz, Austria, in 1991. Seeking warmer climes, they returned to Missouri in the late 1990s, retiring to rural Mountain Grove. There they found another welcoming and warm community of friends.
Being close to Bob's nieces and grandnieces also gave him a chance to strengthen those family bonds, spending many enjoyable experiences with Sylvia Hendricks and her husband, Bob, as well as her daughters, Emily and Lydia, and their families. A multiple-year period of caretaking followed by the loss of Joyce to cancer in 2012 was extremely challenging for him, but Bob persevered, and eventually was rewarded by finding Mickey Strug, with whom he enjoyed more than 12 years of happy, committed and loving companionship. In addition to adventures in the region, including trips to Michigan, St. Louis, and Hermann, Bob and Mickey enjoyed eating out together, gardening, movies, baseball and the company of their many good friends. Through all of his friendships and moves, Bob engaged and entertained his friends with deep, creative, and contrarian thinking, able to engage in lively discourses on topics as diverse as food supplements, UFOs and ancient peoples, religion, society, investing, quantum theory, economics and politics. He also maintained a deep love for photography, capturing the landscapes and people around him in images that evoked well-deserved admiration by those around him. Everyone who met Bob found him interesting and engaging, full of genuine curiosity about them and about the world.  We all miss him dearly.