Bob Wallace Memorial Page

Home | Site Map

Memorial Page Dedicated to

Robert O'Brien (Bob) Wallace

Bobby lost his life in this world, on March 31, 2007, in the pursuit of something he loved and had great passion for, soaring in sailplanes. His last day was a beautiful sunny day and he was a happy soul, content with all around him. His end came suddenly and without pain or unhappiness. He was right with God and no man could ask and get a better 66 years than he received. He will be missed by the many that knew and loved him for the truly gentle and kind person that he was.

A short Bio on Bobby from the prospective of a younger brother:

In his teenage years I remember spending summers with our great aunt Daisy May O'Brien in Lake Wales, Fl where all we did was to water ski and fish all day. We use to find muscles with our feet, in the sand, to use as bait for fishing. Bobby who got very good at water skiing with and without skis, found his way into performing for the tourist at nearby Cypress Gardens who did daily water skiing shows. I remember my family talking about him flying kites behind tow boats but do not remember seeing them because I was very young at the time.

Bobby was an auto mechanic by trade all of his life, widely known for his exceptional & expert abilities. His specialty was Porsche's until he returned to B'ham in the 1990's and there simply was not enough of them around to support a business. In his youth & middle age days he built and drove many race cars mostly in SCCA events. I remember standing on the corner as a preteen drug store cowboy on the Southside of Birmingham, along with a gaggle of other onlookers as Bobby did a 360, in a Carroll Shelby Cobra, in the middle of Clairmont Ave. What was unusual about this is that he had just install a full set of Webbers on the car's 289 engine, the Webbers where standing well above where the hood scoop use to be, the hood was removed, and the throttle linkage was not yet connected. He was using a string that he was holding over the windshield to control the throttle and of course he had that now famous grin, some call it a "shit eat'n grin", as he disappeared down the street in a cloud of smoke. That was some 45 years ago and people who where there still say today, as I bump into them, "Do you remember when Bobby.....".

As a young man in the 1960's, in Birmingham, he was also involved in scuba diving as a dive master and worked for Bill Tant of Southern Scuba Diving conducting classes and open water dives where one of their favorite things to do was to spear absurdly large Barracudas and bring them back. I was privileged to go along at times because the wooden boat they dove out of was so leaky that someone had to constantly man the hand pump. For those that know Bobby it would not be a surprise to know that the old boat only ran because Bobby was always nursing it along.

In the 70's it was some race cars but a lot of sky diving & hanging out at drop zones, achieving both Jumpmaster & Advanced Parachutist rating. During this period, well late 70's, he also owned and flew several airplanes after getting his pilot's rating in Tucson, Arizona. Tucson was Bobby's other home town, having lived there for better than 20 twenty years, before returning to Birmingham. He has many good friends there who are as much family as any of us who happen to be blood.

Bobby loved to hunt and fish, he did plenty throughout his life. As his brother who got to go with him on numerous occasions, I could fill a book with stories, especially in the beautiful state of Arizona. We hunted quail, mule deer, and elk in places that words cannot easily convey. Wide open areas with grand mountains, Sonoran desert, pine forest, all beautifully varied by altitude. The smell of the desert after a rain is something that lingers strongly in these memories. Bobby loved it and we talked about it often. He got into archery hunting around the early 80's with some of his friends and won a Arizona state title shooting bow hunting style competitions. He was really good with that bow. A grouping that did not compete for the space of a dine in the bulls eye was unacceptable. I have seen several arrows that where a shaft, within a shaft, within a shaft, shoots. Not good for the budget but they make good wall trophies.

In the early 2000's he returned to flying after a long layoff when joining the Sylacauga Soaring group, obtaining his glider rating, and flying my Cessna 172. Soaring flight quickly became his favorite outlet where it was not unusual for him to disappear all afternoon on a good day.

Bobby was never one to just stand around and talk about things he had an interest in, he went out and did, was never afraid to live his life, always pushing on the envelope of what there was to be experienced. All of this may sound like a fantasy or a contrivance to you? Well, it was not, it was the life of a man named Robert Wallace who like the rest of us, had his strengths and his weakness, and he walked this earth from August of 1940 to March of 2007.

And I Pray that God Has Received his Soul into Heaven

The following drawing was generously commissioned and given to the Wallace family by a fellow pilot and friend, Steve Bair . It was accepted with much gratitude and now resides with Bobby's wife Brenda. Thank you again Steve, for this kind gesture.

Photo Gallery