Robert H. (Bob) Lominska, died in his home on Tuesday, September 24th, of late complications of a stroke. Bob had been disabled since 2015 when he suffered a brain infarct which cost him most of his ability to speak and the use of the right side of his body. Despite these deficits, and with the constant care and support of his wife Joy, he was able to remain in his home on the farm until the end, according to his wishes.
Bob was born in Sayville, Long Island, the 2nd of 4 children to Clemense (Clem) Augustus Lominska, and Jean (Grammie) Ketcham. Clem was the son of Polish immigrants, educated as a lawyer, who worked at Dutch Boy paint company during the great depression. Grammie, educated at Mount Holyoke, came from a family of physicians and engineers and taught kindergarten.
Bob grew up in a house full of friends who flowed in and out with the Great South Bay for a playground. The house was filled with books and music, from Grammie’s love for musicals and choir, to Bob’s high school folk trio “The Bimini Three.” When money ran low for food at the end of the month, the family would subsist on scallops harvested from the bay. Bob suffered the loss of his own father when he was 15. Clem, an active outdoorsman, died of a heart attack after breaking up a dog fight.
For college, Bob made the novel decision to leave the East Coast for the Midwest. His brother-in-law, Graham, told him that the University of Kansas was cheap and had attractive co-eds. Accordingly, he enrolled, first to study anthropology, later switching to elementary education. In his junior year social psychology class, he met Joy Fellows, who had come to KU from Ohio for their Spanish program. They grew closer as they socialized through a circle of mutual friends. She learned French to write him flirtatious notes. He baked her homemade bread.
As their relationship solidified and he returned from a trip around the world with his family, the specter of the Vietnam war loomed. Morally opposed to US imperialism, Bob chose to enter the Peace Corps when his draft lottery number came up. He and Joy married and were posted to rural Nicaragua. Their two years in Nancimi, Nicaragua, teaching land conservation, agriculture, and women’s health, proved foundational to their life. They returned to Kansas as the war ended to recover from the maladies of the rural tropics and build a life off the land.
They bought 40 acres attached to a 19th century farmhouse in southern Jefferson County and began to build their dream homestead. This process is memorialized in Joy’s book, The Old Home Place. As they heated with a wood stove and hung laundry to dry on the clothesline, they turned an infertile plot of clay and stones into functioning farmland. This project, which they named Hoyland Farm, now has a 50-year history growing organic produce for family, friends, restaurants, and local farmer’s markets. Bob and Joy also co-founded the first Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) in Kansas—the Rolling Prairie Farmers’ Alliance. Bob and Joy were also educators and elementary school teachers.
Bob taught kindergarten at Woodlawn and Hillcrest elementary schools for nearly 30 years. Hundreds of Lawrence school children were shaped by his teaching as they passed through his classroom. This space was a messy, joyful slice of his own life, filled with plants, animals, and books–from baby chicks he hatched with an incubator to a milo sensory table from the feed store. Kids responded to his direct and uncondescending teaching style, and most of all to the music he filled his classroom with, singing and playing guitar.
Bob and Joy carried on the legacy of his open house growing up. They have two biological children, Chris and Avery, and adopted a third, Ashton CallsHim. Bob’s parenting style reflected his own exuberant openness to life, as his kids followed him around picking weeds, playing in the dirt, swimming in the pond, and exploring nature. After school drives home were soundtracked by the radio playing, windows down in the un-airconditioned pickup truck, and frequent stops to pick up leaf bags off neighborhood yards to mulch the garden with.
Bob and Joy supported immigrant students and workers via the Overground Railroad and their network of friends from Latin America. Bob maintained close ties with his mother, who moved to Lawrence, as well as his brother and sisters, David, Betsy and Susan. Extended family, with nieces and nephews, Derek and Ben, and Anna and Julia, were hosted on the farm over the summers.
Bob and Joy decided early in their relationship that they did not want to spend time apart. They shared a vision of life around sustainability, social responsibility, and stewardship of the land. Farm life meant they both lived and worked side by side with complementary skills and a common purpose. Their deep love and appreciation of one another never wavered, despite the rigors of the life they had chosen.
Bob retired from teaching at 58, planning to devote himself fully to farming, travel, and time with his family and grandchildren, Sophie, Ben, Jules, and Evan. He turned his classroom skills to playing and recording music that his grandchildren loved, with songs of trains and cows, beloved of toddlers. He hoped to transition the farm to his middle son, Avery, continue to play in the dirt, and make the rounds of his many friends and acquaintances at the farmer’s market, the Lawrence Community Mercantile, and the community of aging hippies and activists in the greater Lawrence area.
Tragically, those plans were cut short by his stroke at the age of 66. Despite the profound deficits in mobility and language this caused, his intellect and love of music as well as his singing voice were intact. He and Joy threw themselves into physical therapy, speech and music therapy, and other forms of rehabilitation. He was still able to travel some, witnessing family weddings, going to Alaska, and engaging with milestones in his grandchildren’s lives. He took great pride in watching his son, Avery, take over the family farm. Despite his inability to walk long distances, he enjoyed zipping around his land in his golf cart. He continued to see old friends, watch basketball at Johnny’s, enjoy speech and music therapy groups.
As the years passed, his strength and independence declined. Joy and the rest of his family rallied to provide assistance so that he could fulfill his wishes of living out his days on the farm. As the end of his life approached, Joy and his other caregivers lifted him in and out of his bed and into his wheelchair. A sign of his weakening was the loss of his singing voice, which had been unblemished despite the damage to his other functions. His final days were punctuated by family time and a visit to The Rabbit Hole in Kansas City, where he was enthralled by the books that had filled his classroom. Shortly after, he suffered an aspiration pneumonia, and he died quietly at his home with Joy by his side.
He is survived by his son Avery and his partner, Dale, his son Chris and his wife, Chris and their children, Sophie and Ben, and his son Ashton and his wife Jamea and their children Jules and Evan; his younger sister, Susan, and her husband Jack, his oldest sister, Elizabeth and her husband, Graham, his younger brother, David, and his nieces, nephews and grand nieces and nephews.
A memorial and remembrance service for Bob will be Sunday, October 27, 2024 from 2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m. at Maceli’s Banquet Hall, 1031 New Hampshire St, Lawrence, KS 66044. His family welcomes the attendance of everyone who wishes to share in remembering him. Dress is casual.
In lieu of flowers, please send donations to The Kansas Rural Center, PO Box 314 North Newton, KS 67117 or The Kansas Land Trust, PO Box 508. Lawrence, KS 66044.
