Charles Custer Robinson
Charles Custer Robinson (6/30/1892 to 11/17/1963 (Hollywood Cemetery) was born in Altoona, Pennsylvania to Charles M. & Annie Custer Robinson. His sister, Miriam, born 9/18/1895 also in Altoona, died in Richmond June 12, 1911 at the age of 16 at the family residence at 2901 Grove Avenue of heart disease.
“Custer,” being the namesake of his Mother’s family name, entered the Virginia Military Institute in August 1908 as part of the Class of 1912 (132 began but only 41 graduated), but was dismissed after one year and 2 ½ months.
The 1910 City directory lists Custer as living at 828 Park Avenue, but with no place of employment. The 1911 directory lists him as “Clerk” with an address of 2901 Grove Avenue, but does not list a place of employment.
The 1912, 1913 and 1914 Richmond City Directories do not list him. It is Robinson family lore that he was enrolled in trade schools during this time in the vicinity of Bloomington, Illinois where he would meet his future first wife.
The 1915 City Directory lists Custer Robinson as “Superintendent,” but does not list a place of employment. His residence is listed as 701 Chamberlayne Avenue, which would later be re-numbered to 3701.
On March 1, 1916 Custer Married Helen Delores Wiley (2/26/1895 -1/13/1988) of Bloomington, Illinois. Family legend states that they met while Custer was an apprentice at an electrical or heating and air manufacturing company. Helen was the daughter of the newspaper publisher.
Custer and Helen Robinson had four children: Gordon 12/10/1916-10/7/44; Douglas (8/16/1918-9/12/1988); Mildred (8/10/2019-11/20/2003) and Bruce (3/19/25-8/19/1991).
A review of the Charles M. Robinson Plan Archives contains plans for Portsmouth Public Schools’ “Glasgow Street School Toilet Room Addition,” drawn by Custer Robinson and dated November 1916. This is believed to be the first Custer Robinson design for Charles M. Robinson Architects.
The Richmond City Directories contain no listings whatsoever for Custer Robinson for 1917 and 1918, however, his June 5, 1917 draft card lists his occupation as a “Structure and Mechanical Engineer, Charles M. Robinson, Inc.”
The 1920 Census lists the family living at Laburnum Place. The 1930 Census lists Custer Robinson as living at 612 West Franklin Street but married. The 1940 census lists Custer as living at the Raleigh Terrace (2916 Chesapeake Avenue) in Hampton with Lucy, second his wife, his daughter Mildred (21) and his step-daughters Lucy Lake (17) and Jean W (15). Custer Robinson died 11/17/1963 in Frankfort, Kentucky and is buried in Hollywood Cemetery.
In 1922, Custer Robinson patented a design for “Custer Robinson Thermostat Control” and the original patent design is in the Plan Archives.
In April 1922, Charles M. Robinson Architects was appointed the “Official Architect” of The Virginia Historical Pageant Association – a weeklong celebration of Virginia history -- and was engaged to design the grounds, grandstands, amphitheater, electrical, mechanical, stage and site systems for the “Virginia Historical Pageant, May 22-26, which – as promoted -- which “will attract the hundreds and thousands of native-born Virginians [to come back]…and experience happy family reunions [with the theme] ‘Carry Me Back to Old Virginia.’” The Pageant Grounds were “80 acres opposite Joseph Bryan Park.” In the official program for the Pageant, “Mr. C. Custer Robinson” is listed as “Chairman of the Grounds Committee, General.” Serving on the 17-person Committee with him are Ben Ruffin (also of Charles M. Robinson Architects) and Charles L. Hofmann—a former, and early, Charles M. Robinson employee, by 1922 an independent architect. The Pageant Officials spelled Mr. Hofmann’s name wrong in the program as “Hoffman.”
The Times-Dispatch reported 22,000 people came on the first night, which actually ended in a storm with all 22,000 people fleeing and seeing cover and all sets and grounds flooded.
J. Binford Walford would appear in a photograph (left) with Custer Robinson in the center and J. T. Crump at right. They are looking over a crude, boxed model of the site, which may include the arched gates to Bryan Park. The original of the photograph was found in the Charles M. Robinson Plan Archives:
The Richmond Times-Dispatch featured a news story on May 14, 1922 listing Custer Robinson as one of the incorporators of a Henrico and Chesterfield power and light company—the Southampton Light and Power Corporation:
The Richmond Times-Dispatch featured an article on May 4, 1924 written by Custer Robinson discussing how lightning damage could be avoided by properly installing grounded (at least four feet below moist earth) aerials.
In the Spring, Summer and Fall of 1924, Custer Robinson wrote a column for the Richmond Times-Dispatch entitled “Radio Question Box” which ran on an irregular basis, sometimes once a week and sometimes every day or every other day. Under the by-line “C. Custer Robinson, Radio Service Company,” readers submitted questions to better understand how to operate their radio systems and listen to radio stations all across the world.
On October 7, 1924, The Richmond Times-Dispatch ran a feature article “Custer Robinson Plans Installation of Great Flood Lights at W&M.” The article discussed how William & Mary (and Virginia) had their first night football game by the installation of a complex electrical system to support lights on twelve 55-foot poles.
On October 8, 1925, Danville’s The Bee published an article that “The physical survey of the Danville school system has begun….Custer Robinson, son of the principal of the firm and head of the engineering department, was to have been here this week to start the survey by the illness of his child necessitating an operation has delayed him…”
Custer Robinson’s greatest strengths were in structural design and electrical engineering, not exterior design. He should be considered the silent architect of the Mosque. His plans for the Mosque’s foundation and electrical and sound components are in the Plan Archives. This article from the January 9, 1932 documents his role:
Custer and Helen Robinson’s Richmond, Virginia Houses
1916 to Before 1919: 701 Chamberlayne Avenue (Later Renumbered to 3701 Chamberlayne)
1919: 2242 Park Avenue
1920-1922: 13 Laburnum Court
1923: 3405 Gloucester Avenue
1924-1925: 3407 Gloucester Avenue
1926-1927: 3509 Chamberlayne Avenue
1928-29: 3125 Monument Avenue (Built in 1926 by Charles M. Robinson Architects)
1930-32: 612 East Franklin Street (Helen Robinson is not listed as living with him)
Custer Robinson and Helen Robinson may have maintained two separate households in 1930-1932, as Custer Robinson is clearly listed as living at 612 East Franklin Street in the central downtown. And Helen Robinson may have been living at the Sevilla Apartments not too far away near the intersection of Jefferson Street and 200 West Grace Street.
Custer’s two oldest children – Gordon and Douglas – were enrolled at Fork Union Military Academy, leaving his youngest, Mildred and Bruce, in Richmond. On break from Fork Union Military Academy, Douglas was playing with his younger brother Bruce at 7:00 p.m. on Grace Street near the Jefferson Hotel when he was hit in the street by an automobile and critically-injured. He would first be taken to Grace Hospital and later to Stuart Circle, where he would spend weeks in the Hospital. Bruce’s April Fools’ Day injury while playing with his brother with a wallet on a string may have occupied most of Custer Robinson’s attention from April 1932 until the official end of Charles M. Robinson Architects in August 1932 with Charles M. Robinson’s passing. Robinson Family Lore states that Charles M. Robinson paid large sums of money to attend to Bruce’s care, bringing doctors from Washington, DC and placing them on stand-by at the Hotel Jefferson.
After Charles M. Robinson’s death in August, 1932, Custer Robinson left his family in Richmond and ventured westward and Helen Robinson withdrew her sons from Fork Union Military Academy and took her four children to live with her parents in her hometown, Bloomington, Illinois.
Not much is known about Custer’s whereabouts after 1932. In 1933, he was in Little Rock, Arkansas and wrote a letter to a Sabot Station boyhood friend.
He had returned to Hampton, Virginia by May of 1935 and opened a sole practitioner architectural and engineering firm and be near his mother, Annie Custer Robinson, who lived at Miribeth on Back River. It does not appear that he ever attempted to contact J. Binford Walford to obtain any Charles M. Robinson plans or accounts. The fact that the architectural drawings that Custer Robinson drew for his own houses in Richmond in the 1920s and 1930s were present in the Plan Archives in 2020 gives rise to the conclusion that he never contacted or approached J. Binford Walford after 1932. Custer Robinson was not a pallbearer at his father’s August 22, 1932 funeral.
In April, May and June 1935, Custer Robinson ran a large display advertisement (12 weeks) in Newport News’ Daily Press featuring the photo of the stone model of Thomas Jefferson High School in Richmond with people and building features drawn in high detail:
The following is a first-census of Custer Robinson architectural projects compiled in the Summer of 2020 from an extensive review of entries at Newspapers.com:
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May 1935 -- 30’x100’ brick store, Mellen Street, Phoebus for Rose’s 5-10-25 Stores
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May 1935 – Heating & Air Conditioning Plant for the Virginia Melting Company
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September 1935 – African-American Jefferson Theatre, 632 25th Street, Newport News
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September 1938 – Wythe Firehouse, City of Newport News, Kecoughtan Road
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October 1938 – Modernization of Elizabeth City Court House ($18,885)
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September 1929 – Gospel Hall Church, 29th St. between West and River, Newport News
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February 1940 – Three Story Building with 20 hotel-apartments and two stores at Wine and East Queen Street, Newport News, next to the Langley Hotel ($70,000)
On August 12, 1935 in the Law and Equity Court of the City of Richmond, a divorce was granted to Helen Wiley Robinson – as plaintiff in a contested divorce trial. The marriage of 19 years and 5 months would be granted to her.
Custer married a second time on 2/27/1939 to Lucy Moore Willis Moon Lake (7/12/1897- 2/19/1944). She was born in Richmond and was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. C. K. Willis, Sr. who had lived in Hampton for many years and sister to Robert G. Willis and C. K. Wills, Jr.
Helen Robinson never remarried. After moving herself and her four children to Bloomington, Illinois in 1932, she would return to Richmond in the late 1930s and then move back to Hampton, Virginia in the 1950s.
In 1938, he wrote and illustrated a self-published 21-page children’s and young adult book entitled “Kecoughtan in Fact and Fancy” tracing the history of the area from pre-colonial times to the modern era of air-power.
Custer Robinson apparently did inherit Charles M. Robinson’s land on Back River in Hampton and at some point, placed the land in a holding company: Langley View Development Company, which dissolved itself in April 1939:
But it appears that Custer Robinson dissolved the land holding company but retained ownership of 49 acres, which was eventually taken by the government in anticipation of wartime housing:
The 1940 census lists Custer as living at the Raleigh Terrace (2916 Chesapeake Avenue) in Hampton with Lucy, second his wife, his daughter Mildred (21) and his step-daughters Lucy Lake (17) and Jean W (15).
In October 1941, Mr. and Mrs. Custer Robinson were living at the Parramore Apartments on Hampton Boulevard.
On June 29, 1941, the Daily Press announced that Custer’s step-daughter, Lucy Ann Lake – a graduate of James Madison, was marrying Winston Thomas Sigfried of Richmond, a Duke University graduate, on August 9, 1941. Custer’s other step-daughter was Jean Lake.
During WWII, Custer served as a research engineer for the United States Government out of Cincinnati, but returning to Hampton often. He specialized in working with private companies to convert their manufacturing facilities to defense production.
Lucy Moore Willis Moon Lake Robinson died February 20, 1944 of bone cancer. During 1942-1943 she was very active – often with Custer when he was in Hampton – of hosting USO, Red Cross and “Gray Lady” parties and dances and dinners. She is buried in Hollywood Cemetery, but not in the Robinson Family Plot.
After his wife died, Custer Robinson apparently moved to Cincinnati altogether.
Annie Custer Robinson’s obituary from July 1946 states that her son, C. Custer Robinson was “of Cincinnati, Ohio.”
An article in the Dayton [Ohio], Herald on January 14, 1947 stated “The Monsanto Company was to obtain authorization today to use the offices of the former Chandler-Evans Carburetor Plant on Nicholas Road. Custer Robinson of the Cincinnati Office of the War Assets Administration (WAA), was to present a letter of entry to Dr. Carroll Hockwalt, head of Monsanto’s Central Research Laboratory in Dayton.”
The Louisville Courier-Journal of June 7, 1950 had the following news article:
Custer Robinson died on November 17, 1963 in Frankfort, Kentucky. An obituary in the Cincinnati Enquirer states that he was a “retired mechanical engineer.” He is buried in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond.
Custer’s 1963 obituary states “He attended Virginia Military Institute and Cornell and Purdue Universities where he obtained degrees.” The Virginia Military Institute confirm in 1995 that Custer had been dismissed and provided a number of pieces of 1909 correspondence from Charles M. Robinson (on Firm letterhead) confirming that. In the Summer of 2020, the Registrars offices of both Cornell and Purdue confirmed that Custer Robinson did not receive any degrees. Both Registrars stated that no records are kept on any student that may have taken classes that did not result in a degree, so Custer may have attended but he never received any college degree.
