Trepeta—Robert Paul Trepeta, 83, on October 17, 2017, in Doylestown, Pa. Bob was born on January 11, 1933, in Manhattan, New York City, to Michalina Lechowski and Peter Nicolai Trepeta.
Michalina, born in Austria when it was still part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, was brought to the United States in 1912 as a child by a cousin, and Peter was born in the Ukraine. Peter’s great-great-grandfather, Paolo Trepeta, a stonemason, had moved from Savoy, France, to Moscow, Russia, in 1805 to build churches. When Peter’s father worked in the oil fields near the Caspian Sea, he met Peter’s mother, and after marrying, they bought a farm in the Ukraine. Peter attended the Russian Army’s Officers Candidate School, although he was never commissioned. As a Socialist partisan in the overthrow of the Tsar in February 1917, he helped to control rioters in search of food in St. Petersburg and Moscow. When the Bolshevik revolution occurred in November 1917, he became persona non grata. His father gave him money and a horse, and he fled on horseback through Finland. In France, he acquired forged papers that got him into the United States in 1918.
Bob grew up in Manhattan. He started drawing maps when very young, and at age ten he won a $100 war bond when he entered his map of the United States in a contest. At 12 he sang in productions of Carmen and Boito’s Mefistofele in a boys chorus.
He attended the City College of New York for three semesters before joining the U.S. Air Force, spending most of his enlistment in the South Pacific. An air-traffic controller, he trained others at Tokyo airport. When he left the air force in 1955, he moved to Minneapolis to attend the University of Minnesota, where he studied English and voice. During his last two years at the school he sang with the Minnesota Opera. Following graduation he returned to New York City and taught for a year and a half in the Bronx. Finding that teaching was not for him, he found work as a cartographer with the General Drafting Corporation, later received an accounting degree, and worked in the banking industry. He later worked for the New York Lighthouse for the Blind.
He met Sherwood Carter, called Woody, in 1961. Woody retired after 30 years as a clinical social worker and Bob from 30 years as a mapmaker, and they moved to East Hampton, N.Y., in 1991. In 1999 they moved to Doylestown, Pa., and discovered Doylestown Meeting, becoming members in 2011. Bob served as a clerk of the former Ministry and Outreach Committee and was a director of the meeting’s corporation.
He participated in Pine Run Retirement Community’s meditation group, and known for his love of fine details and knowledge of food and ingredients in domestic and foreign cuisine, he enjoyed music and attending concerts, walking, and hiking.
Bob is survived by his husband of 57 years, Woody Carter; a brother, Ted Trepeta; a nephew, Warren Trepeta; two nieces, Susan Hanna and Christine Domalewski; and many grandnieces and grandnephews. His sister, Eleanor Wysocki, survived him but has since died.
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