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Robert Zelinski, first a university professor and later an industrial research chemist, died on June 21, 2012 in Houston, TX at age 92. Born in Chicago on January 13, 1920, he was educated in the public elementary schools, DePaul Academy, DePaul University (B. S. 1941) and Northwestern University (Ph.D. 1945). He returned to DePaul University and devoted the next ten years to teaching chemistry, becoming a professor and Chairman of the Department of Chemistry.
In 1955, Dr. Zelinski left academia and joined the Research and Development Department of Phillips Petroleum Company in Bartlesville. There he entered upon a successful career as an inventor of synthetic rubbers and managed the Rubber Synthesis Branch. His 40 patents resulted in licenses or joint ventures in eight countries, in addition to several domestic licenses. In 1975, after 20 years in synthetic rubber research, he was transferred to managing Phillips' Engineering Plastics Branch, where he spent the next 10 years happily learning to understand chemical engineers.
As an infant, Dr. Zelinski was stricken with infantile poliomyelitis, which caused serious neurological damage and muscle atrophy to one leg. Nevertheless, he enjoyed an active family life, leading excursions to the Great Salt Plains and numerous other sites of geologic interest; serving as scorekeeper at countless baseball games and swim meets; and acting as a chauffeur, chaperone and one-man cheering section for his four children.
Although Dr. Zelinski and his wife Virginia were both born and raised as "city" kids in Chicago, in the late 1960s they threw caution to the wind and bought 20 acres of undeveloped land just north of Bartlesville and built a home. Aided only by a pickaxe, a sledge hammer, and an iron will, Dr. Zelinski single handedly dug out enough limestone to fill several Olympic-sized swimming pools in order to transform the surrounding wilderness into an idyllic setting for his home. Remarkably, Dr. Zelinski accomplished this physical feat in spite of the increasingly debilitating effects of polio on one leg, as well as the delayed onset of paralytic symptoms in the other. Once, after falling from a tractor and fracturing his leg, Dr. Zelinski crawled to his car, drove himself to the emergency room, had the bone reset and a cast put on, and then drove himself home, where he calmly awaited the return of his wife from her afternoon bridge game.
After retirement in 1985, Dr. Zelinski and his wife continued to live in Bartlesville until her death in 2002, after 57 years of marriage. Dr. Zelinski spent the last decade of his life in Houston, where he developed a passion for the music of Chet Atkins, Les Paul and other legendary guitar players. He continued to be a voracious reader of books that ranged from the works of Rudyard Kipling and historical nonfiction to astronomy and quantum physics. As he hoped that he would, Dr. Zelinski died quietly in his sleep. He is survived and will be missed greatly by his children William Zelinski and his former wife Nancy Hall, Jean Mathur and her husband Umesh, and Linda Worden; five grandchildren, including Lorraine Zelinski, John Zelinski, Veena Atwood and her husband Bryan, Jim Mathur and Jay Mathur; and one great grandchild, Issaic Zelinski. He was preceded in death by his son Jim in 1978, his wife Virginia, and his sister Audrey.
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