Robert William Doner

Robert (Bob) Doner passed away July 2 in Asheville, North Carolina, at the end of what is called “the long dying” that is vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease.  He is survived by his wife of 40 years, Alice; his three children Jacqueline, Jennifer, and John; his stepson Edward; six grandchildren; five great grandchildren; and his beloved Golden Retriever, Bella Sophia. 

Bob grew up in Springfield, Massachusetts, the youngest child of Harland and Helena, with family roots in New York, Vermont, and County Clare, Ireland.  He often recalled fondly his childhood and spoke lovingly of his father, with the “big hands and the big heart,” and respectively of his mother, who took him to concerts in New York City and made sure that her youngest child would go to college.  Bob graduated with a BS in accounting from the University of Hartford and practiced briefly as an accountant with Arthur Andersen.  But Bob said he was never that interested in accounting and used his financial expertise in other work throughout the years, taking him to Hartford, Ann Arbor, San Jose, Grand Cayman, and to Houston, where he met Alice.  By that time he was working with reinsurance companies and soon started his own consulting firm.  He and Alice moved to Austin where they lived for 25 years before moving to the Asheville area in 2008. 

Never a man “married to his work,” Bob better defined himself by his many and varied interests. He immersed himself in biographies, especially those of Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill.  He loved learning new things, including ceramics, wood working, pastry making, home engineering projects, and took up tennis at 60.  If Alice wanted a bench for her garden, he designed and built it; if she were holding an art photography show, he made the frames and hung the pictures.  But his greatest passion was fly fishing.  He said he was drawn to fly fishing because of the beauty and serenity of the mountain streams, the sport’s artistry and requirement for patience, and, most of all, for the solitude.  He seldom kept the fish he caught, preferring to briefly admire their beauty and release them back into the wild.   

Alice and Bob travelled extensively, and Alice often arranged trips to include places where Bob could fish (and she could photograph castles and gardens).  He fished waters in Wales, Ireland, Nova Scotia, British Columbia, Labrador, and the mountains of the western United States and Appalachia.  Bob and Alice took long road trips in North America and Bob’s work with Lloyd’s of London often took them to England. They went several times to Ireland, France, Italy, and Spain; once taking the Orient Express from Venice to London.  In England they stayed in the bedroom of a 16th century manor house, where the portraits of the owners were carved in oak above the stone fireplace.  In the south of France, they shared a rack of lamb and raspberry soufflé in a restaurant housed in an 11th century monastery, high on a cliff overlooking the sea.  In Canada they watched the storms roll in on the wild western coast of Vancouver Island.  Bob often talked of being so moved by his experience at the Holocaust Museum in DC, a testament to both humankind’s cruelty and to its resilience; and by his discovery of the Villa Borghese in Rome, with gorgeous ceilings that he loved, a testament to beauty and creativity, where sculptors wrested life from cold marble.  To their surprise, Bob and Alice loved best Catalonia – Barcelona and the Costa Brava – where they spent days wandering through medieval hilltop villages and an afternoon sailing on the Mediterranean, spying a school of silvered dolphins, flying out suddenly from the clear blue water, reaching toward the sun.  These days were gifts. 

Bob’s passing leaves a hole in our hearts, but perhaps we can catch a glimpse of him in the sunlight on the cold mountain waters, when a fish may rise. 

Bob’s remains will be cremated. No traditional funeral is planned; instead, friends and family will gather in the fall to toast Bob and to scatter his ashes in one of the mountain streams he loved. 

If you wish to honor Bob, please consider a contribution to one of the following charities: Four Seasons Hospice, Aston Park Health Care Center, Memory Care, or Trout Unlimited. 

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