Bob Vaughan didn’t make it simple. From assessing the big picture to obsessing over small details, from racing
ahead academically to standing back socially, and from packing a car to picking up a room, he added complexity or contradiction to many of life’s moments. He also left a lot of those traits in his six adult children – his true life’s work – when he died in Farmington on Thursday, April 10, the day after his 84th birthday.
Bob was born the second of four children to John Sebastian Vaughan and Helen Conlon Vaughan, growing up in Melrose and Wellesley, Mass., where his lifelong passion for sports took root as he rode his bike to watch the Boston Braves and Red Sox play baseball. His unusual brain pushed him two years ahead in school and at age 16 to Harvard, which graduated him in the Class of 1950. His sole surviving sibling, younger brother Richard Joseph Vaughan, describes him then as “someone to brag about.” Bob joined the Army as a stateside training officer during the U.S. Korean conflict, aided by the big voice and bad temper that could make him a fearsome presence despite his 5-foot-8 frame that rarely carried more than 150 pounds.
He earned a law degree at the College of William & Mary, where he surprised himself with cooking skills as a food service employee and surprised others with progressive opinions on issues from racism to red-baiting. Then he left behind that potential turning point, settling into life in the suburbs of New Haven and Hartford, Conn., where he worked as an insurance underwriter and raised his family with Ann Dowling Vaughan, his wife of 40 years. Fatherhood turned out to be the dominant experience for a largely introverted man. He moved well ahead of the cultural curve at the time, plunging into all aspects of parenting and showing up for years of countless soccer matches, track meets, choir concerts, etc. – not only at schools in West Hartford but at colleges and other venues hundreds of miles away. He loved to drive, and once calculated he had covered more than 2 million miles in his lifetime.
Pointedly, he put his own stamp on this behavior. Daughter Lori Vaughan believes his disregard for gender roles in cleaning, cooking and shopping marked him as “a feminist without knowing he was,” but even loving female eyes rolled at his authoritative instructions for how to leave vacuum tracks on carpet or save grocery money with coupons. Daughter Kathryn Vaughan smiles about a man who provided calm reassurance in a crisis and instead “really sweated the small stuff.” Daughter Diann Vaughan sees his loose, silly side when creating nicknames or song snippets with her own kids, then laughs again at how strict and serious he could be about her teen clothing preferences. Sons John, Bob Jr. and Ryan Vaughan know that without him, they wouldn’t have acquired various advantages such as masterfully loading a car for vacation, traveling long distances to explore something new, recounting a ballgame in unnecessary detail -- or choosing their own paths for college and career without much worry about cost or benefit. Bob spent his final years in New Britain, refusing to succumb to a diagnosis of lung cancer some 30 years after he quit the cigarette habit he had started while trying to seem “older” at age 12. He still was driving as recently as last summer, but eventually passed away from complications of dementia. Bob will be missed to varying degrees by former clients, colleagues and car mechanics in Connecticut, tourism promoters near his favorite spots in coastal Maine, special friends in Virginia and Florida, and of course by his extended family: Ann, of West Hartford; Ryan, of New York City; Bob Jr. and his wife, Kathy McGrath, of Garwood, NJ; John and his wife, Ann Marie, with their four grown children, Casey, A.J., Austin, and Jessiana, of Riverview, FL; Diann and her husband, David Bird, with their three boys, Christopher, Erik, and Owen, all of Arlington, VA; Lori and her husband, John Ferguson, with their two boys, Noah and Ethan, of New York City; and Kathryn and her partner, Nathan Preston, of Los Angeles. Bob was predeceased by his parents as well as his older brother, John, and younger sister, Julie.
A Mass of Christian Burial will be held Monday, April 14, at 10 a.m. in St. Peter Claver Church, 47 Pleasant St., West Hartford, CT 06107. Burial will follow in the Connecticut State Veterans Cemetery on Bow Lane, Middletown, CT 06457. The Farley-Sullivan Funeral Home in Wethersfield has care of arrangements. There are no calling hours. To extend online condolences or to share a memory, please visit FarleySullivan.com. In lieu of flowers, please considerySullivan.com. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to research and combat autism at AutismSpeaks.org.

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