Dr. Robert Reilly's Obituary
Dr. Robert Reilly, age 84, of Fayetteville passed away Monday August 3, 2020 at Washington Regional Hospice after suffering a long-term Illness. He was born December 7, 1935 in Waukegan, Illinois to James and Hilda Van Heirseele Reilly. He was a long-time member of Saint Paul’s Episcopal Church in Fayetteville, Arkansas. He is preceded in death by his parents, his son, David Edward Reilly, brother, Harry Reilly. Bob grew up in Libertyville, Illinois a small community northwest of Chicago, Illinois. Growing up he did a lot of odd jobs along with his other two brothers, to help out with the family income. He graduated from high school 1953 and during those years he took up playing the clarinet. While in high school he started a small dixieland band called “The Reilly Shamrocks”. They would play dixieland music riding on an old REO Speedwagon truck for parades in Libertyville. His sister Pat would play an old piano along with the band. After high school he went on to major in Music Education at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Illinois with a major in Clarinet. Along with attending classes he and two friends formed a small jazz group called the “King’s Men”. Their band would play for different occasions at Wesleyan. He also was a member of the Bloomington/Normal Symphony along with another music major Mary Anne Cubin, a cellist who would eventually become his wife. Bob was an active member of the Phi Mu Alpha music fraternity and a member of the Blue Key Honor Society. In both his junior & senior years, he was chosen to perform in an Honor Recital. Bob & Mary Anne became acquainted with the priest of St. Matthews Episcopal Church in Bloomington and would eventually be married there in September of 1956. They also sang in the church choir for a time while students at Wesleyan. After Bob's graduation, he became a music teacher for a small school in Homer, Illinois. People there
were very welcoming and friendly with it being a small farm community. It was a small school, but he managed to do well with his young students, and they were able to attend the state competitions and do quite well for a small school. Along with his teaching job in Homer, he decided to take a graduate course in counselling at the University of Illinois in Champaign/Urbana, Illinois a few miles away from Homer. It was there that he learned about a three-year graduate fellowship program being offered through the “National Defense Education Act” to study for a Masters Degree and Doctorate in “Psychology of Classroom Learning”. It was a competitive program, so Bob was very thrilled to be selected as a candidate from a considerable field of candidates. To help make ends meet, Bob played sax and clarinet with the “The Dick Holleman Big Band” on the weekends. They were the house band during the summers at a resort on Shafer Lake out of Lafayette, Indiana. They backed up numerous acts that came to the resort, including Homer and Jethro and Louis Armstrong. By then we had our first son Michael, born in August of 1957. The second summer Bob again played with the band at Shafer Lake, and they now had a daughter Carolyn, born in April of 1960. Our third child David, was born in April of 1962. Bob finished his doctorate in 1963 after completing his course work and dissertation on the subject of Dental Chair-Side Assistants at the University of Illinois Dental School in Chicago, Illinois. He and another graduate student developed a new methodology for evaluating/grading dental school students' ability to create a proper fit for their dental work. His career as a college professor started with a position teaching at the State University of Wisconsin in Oshkosh, Wisconsin in the Educational Psychology Department in 1964. He moved on from there to a position at the State University of New York in Oswego, New York as a professor in the Psychology Department in 1966. In those years there were many opportunities for teaching in this field of learning. He then moved to Shippensburg State College in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania in 1969 and lastly moved to the University of Arkansas in 1971 where he remained for the next thirty years. He started that position teaching in two departments: in the Graduate Education Department as well as the Psychology Department in Arts & Science. Along the way he had many publications and spoke at many educational conferences on subjects in his field of Educational Psychology. He worked on many committees and was an advocate for many undergraduate and graduate students in his years of teaching. In 1980 he completed a successful textbook published on Educational Psychology that was used in his classes and at other universities. He traveled to teach in a summer program along with a group of professors from the University of Arkansas at the American School in Athens, Greece for six weeks in the summer of 1976. He also taught in Bolivia at the American Schools in La Paz, Cochabamba, & Santa Cruz for six weeks in 1985 & 1988. They had adopted his textbook, and he facilitated seminars on the use of his textbook in their programs. He continued his love for music throughout his career, playing sax and clarinet in the Big Bands as a hobby at all of the places he lived and continued here. He played with the Ragtime Professors, and the Jack Terry Big Band, and The Northwest Winds of Arkansas. Both Bob & Mary Anne were active members in the choir at St. Paul's Episcopal Church for many years. Bob and his family also loved hiking and camping visiting many national parks around the country and managed to see portions of most of the lower 48 states. He will be dearly missed for his sense of humor and his love for his family and all that he achieved, both in his career and his 64 years of marriage to his wife Mary Anne.
He is survived by his wife of 64 years, Mary Anne Cubin Reilly; one daughter, Carolyn Reilly Harris of Portland, Oregon; son, Michael William Reilly of Fresno, California; two sisters, Patricia Shramek of Burlington, Wisconsin, Kathleen Vogl of Grayslake, Illinois; brother, George Reilly and wife Dadee, of Roseville, Minnesota; eleven grandchildren and eight great grandchildren.
Cremation arrangements are under the direction of Moore’s Chapel in Fayetteville.
There will be an internment committal service at St. Paul’s Episcopal August 20th at 10:00 a.m.
Memorial contributions may be made to “The Caring Friends” St. Paul’s Episcopal Church or “The Friends of Music Fund” at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 223 North East Avenue, Fayetteville, Arkansas 72701 or Washington Regional Friends of Hospice, 325 East Longview Street, Fayetteville, Arkansas 72703.
To place an online tribute, please visit www.mooresfuneralchapel.com
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