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Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Naple` NY - Naples man's lived a life of laughing through tears...

OFF THE WIRE
BY: Michele E. Cutri-Bynoe
Source: mpnnow.com
Naples, N.Y. — If laughter is the best medicine, then spreading it certainly describes the life purpose of Bob Webster, 65, aka Bobo the clown, who passed away on Sunday, Nov. 21.
A native of Brooklyn, Mr. Webster was intrigued with an uncle who dressed in funny costumes to perform as a Coney Island clown. But, it wasn’t until he saw Red Skelton on TV that he knew what he wanted to do in life, said his friend Don Gelder, a deacon at the First Baptist Church in Naples.
“He went to his uncle, asking to borrow the clown costume, so he could go to the hospital to cheer up kids in the children’s ward,” said Gelder, recalling a story his friend once told him. Visiting hospitals as a clown was a ministry Mr. Webster continued until he passed away.
There was one child in particular, who Mr. Webster — as Bobo the Clown — truly touched. A small girl at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn had been horribly abused by her parents. They had cut off both of her hands, said Gelder in recalling the story.
“Bob made it possible for her to smile and laugh at a time when such things didn’t seem possible,” said Gelder. That child kept in contact with Bob all these years.
Mr. Webster’s desire to entertain kids in the hospital was heartfelt: He had been abused as a child and had been born with a club foot from spina bifida. He was well acquainted with hospital children’s wards. At 14 years old, he had undergone 23 surgeries, recalled his cousin, Linda Templeton of Dansville.
That round of surgeries included the partial amputation of his foot, said Gelder, adding that his friend would later joke about the prosthesis he wore as a result of that surgery, often threatening to take it off and hit one person or another with it to peals of laughter from those who knew him.
Mr. Webster wasn’t an amateur clown by any means. He graduated from the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Clown School, learning his trade from Emmett Kelly Sr. and Lou Jacobs, Red Skelton and Marcel Marceau after an audition with the circus in 1960.
He plied his trade with Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus for 22 years, and he appeared in the movie “The Greatest Show On Earth.” It may have only been a bit part, but he bounced on a trampoline just the same, said Gelder.
In 1970, at the age of 38, he married Marie Wallenda of the famous Flying Wallendas high wire troupe. They had two children who followed their father performing as clowns under the big top.
On his son’s ninth birthday, the world changed for Mr. Webster. Marie and their two children were killed in an automobile accident on Dec. 16, 1987. This turn of events sent Mr. Webster away from the circus. He couldn’t bear the thought of going back to a place where memories of his wife and children would haunt him.
He succumbed once again to alcoholism, a disease his wife had helped him overcome, and he spent the next five years riding in New York City with the Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang.
A minister from Rushville helped him get cleaned up and brought him to the Rushville area, said Templeton. He lived there for seven years until he moved to Naples in September 2007. He was a deacon in the First Baptist Church.
“This unsung hero was often seen in his golf cart in local parades, painting children’s faces, humbly serving people who did not have a clue about who he was,” said Gelder.
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