Bandstand Flag Notice – November 2022

Robert M. Collison

March 19, 1917 – October 28, 1996

The United States Navy – Marines Corp

Lieutenant

Bob Collison was a long-time physician and surgeon in Oskaloosa. He was born in 1917 on a farm near Arcadia, Iowa. He earned a degree in animal science at Iowa State and farmed with his brothers before turning to medicine in 1940.

After war was declared, he accelerated his medical training. He entered the Navy in 1944, serving 21 months as a medical officer and lieutenant attached to the 2nd Marine Division. His regiment was part of the Battle of Okinawa and was in training in Saipan for invasion of Japan when surrender came. His battalion sailed into Nagasaki harbor in the last days of September 1945 to establish and keep order in the Occupation of Japan in post-bomb Nagasaki, Sasebo, and Fukuoka. Medically, Dr. Collison handled combat and emergency medicine for the Marines. As part of the Marines’ demilitarization and order-keeping missions, he also had responsibilities for handling the medical aftermath of the atomic bomb and communicable disease risks among Japanese civilians.

After the war, he trained further in surgery in Cedar Rapids before moving to Oskaloosa in 1947. In the 1960s, he and Sidney Smith, M.D., founded Family Medical Center, growing it into a multiple specialty practice. Dr. Collison was also a successful agribusinessman, partnering with investor John Muhl and tenant farmers, and was a long-time director at Iowa Trust and Savings. He and his wife Margaret Davis Collison, whom he married in 1943 while training in medicine in St. Louis, were the parents of 11 children. He and his family were long-time parishioners of St Mary’s and supporters of civic and educational causes in Oskaloosa and Iowa.

Contact Shawn Langkamp at Langkamp Funeral Chapel & Crematory at 641-672-2181 or www.langkampfuneralchapel.com on the Contact-Us-Link if you are interested in honoring a deceased veteran with the flag above the bandstand.