Biography
Warren Eastman Robinson was born on 7 May 1890 to Walter Augustine Robinson (1854 – 1925) and Florence Louisa Warren (1853 – 1929). His first and middle name are surnames from his mother’s side.
Warren attended Bowdoin College (class of 1910) and married Anne Louise Johnson on 26 December 1914. He fought in World War I; he was 1st Lieut., 102nd Machine Gun Battalion, Co. C, 26th Div., and was killed in action near Verdun, France on 6 November 1918. He was 28 years old.
– FindAGrave
LIEUT. WARREN E. ROBINSON, ’10.
Lieutenant Warren Eastman Robinson is officially reported as having died, on November 6th, of wounds received in action about November 5th. He was first lieutenant of Company C, I02d Machine Gun Battalion, of the 26th Division.
In 1910, Lieutenant Robinson became a member of Troop C, Massachusetts Cavalry. He served on the Mexican border during the summer of 1916, winning his commission as second lieutenant in that period. The Massachusetts Cavalry was later converted into a machine gun battalion, and as such went across to France in September, 1917. The record of the 26th is well known.
After some weeks of training the company went into the line about the first of February. In the early summer Lieutenant Robinson attended a school of instruction for officers, and his promotion to the rank of first lieutenant soon followed. After the second battle of the Marne, in which he had been engaged at Chateau Thierry, he was cited in orders for marked gallantry. His last letter, written November 3rd, reported heavy fighting, which was later identified as that east of the Meuse.
Warren Eastman Robinson came from a prominent Bowdoin family. His father, Walter A. Robinson, of Arlington, Mass., is a graduate of the college, and a member of the faculty of the Boston Latin School. Warren E. Robinson was born on May 7, 1890, and attended the schools of Arlington. At Bowdoin he was a member of the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity, was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and was active in track athletics, the Orient, and other undergraduate affairs. After his graduation in 1910 he studied science and mathematics at Harvard University, receiving the degree of A.M., and taught in the high schools at Watertown and Quincy. For the last few years he had been a member of the faculty of the Boston Latin School.
In 1914, Lieutenant Robinson married Anne Louise, daughter of the late Professor Henry Johnson and Mrs. Johnson. His home was in Boston, but his vacations were spent mostly in Brunswick. Lieutenant Robinson is survived by his wife and his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Walter A. Robinson.
No one who knew Lieutenant Robinson in civilian life could doubt that he would make an able and devoted officer. His thorough manliness, his wholesomeness of body, mind and spirit, his splendid vigor and alertness, and his steadiness under great responsibilities, were qualities that marked him out for leadership. He had a clear, well-poised mind and a wide range of interests, but his bent was toward a life of action. It was this temperament that made him so successful in dealing with boys. Like all his father’s people, he told a story capitally, and he had the keenest relish of absurdities. There was about him a certain merriness of heart, a youthful zest in the give and take of comradeship, which explains the delight he took, for instance, in Ian Hay’s stories of the war. Captain Wagstaffe and Bobby Little would have welcomed him to that gallant and whimsical fellowship. These were the engaging surface traits of a character grounded upon loyalty, unassuming strength, unusual capacity for deep affection, and a highly spiritual religious faith. The sacrifice was never made more generously, with a clearer vision of its precious elements, or a better understanding of the magnificence of the Cause.
– Bowdoin Orient, 7 January 1919
