Robert Bradlee Allport, 1927-2016
CAMDEN……………….Dr. Robert Bradlee Allport, a devoted husband and father, an advocate for the congenitally disabled, and a man with a deep appreciation for both the San Francisco and Penobscot Bay areas died on Sunday, January 10, 2016, at Maine Medical Center in Portland. He was 88. The cause of his death was heart failure.
Born in Boston on June 29, 1927, the only child of Harvard professor Gordon W. Allport and his wife Ada Lufkin Gould Allport, Bob often said that the best day of his life was May 14, 1949, when he married Ardys May Karbaum inside the church in Harvard Yard. They shared a life and marriage that flourished for 54 years until Ardys (an art dealer, advocate for Maine artists, and gallery owner in San Francisco) died in 2003. Bob, almost daily, expressed his love and admiration for her and died with her picture by his side. He was surrounded by their three children Michael, Tony, and Victoria.
Bob Allport was a pediatrician who specialized early in his career in the care and treatment of children born with significant mental or physical challenges. How a society cares for its medically helpless, he would say, is a true measure of its civilization. He graduated from Harvard in 1949 and then attended medical school at Case Western Reserve in Cleveland, Ohio. As part of his medical training he was a rotating Intern at the Public Health Service Hospital at the Presidio in San Francisco, sometimes serving on a trans-Pacific Coast Guard weather ship.
Lured by the charm of San Francisco in the early 1950s, he returned there after graduating from medical school and completing a Pediatrics Residency in Ohio. Over his career, which spanned more than four decades, he worked 25 non-consecutive years in the San Francisco Bay area at several practices including two long stints as Medical Director of North Bay Regional Center, an agency providing services to the developmentally disabled, and as a Staff Physician at Sonoma Development Center, a state facility serving similar clients. He consistently advocated for equal opportunities in health services, education and independent living for his patients. During his time in the Bay Area he served for many years as an Assistant Clinical Professor Pediatrics at U.C. San Francisco.
Additionally, the family resided in the East three times. During the first, Bob worked in Maine as Clinical Director at Pineland State Hospital while living in Falmouth Foreside. In 1973 he pursued an advanced training fellowship in his specialized field for a year, at his medical school, Case Western Reserve. Following that training he returned to his hometown of Cambridge, Massachusetts, during his mother’s final years. He practiced at the New England Medical Center and served as an Assistant Professor Pediatrics for Tufts Medical School. In 1978 he returned to the Bay Area for 13 years before retiring in 1992 and moving with Ardys to Portland, Oregon, to be close to their three children and young grandchildren.
Bob’s connection with the Camden Hills area began in the mid-1930s, when his family came to summer in Lincolnville. His mother was born in Lincolnville Beach in 1898. By 1939 his family had purchased a small, rustic farmhouse without indoor plumbing on the backside of Maiden Cliff. He visited what he called “the farm” almost every year of his life since then, the place he described as paradise on earth. In retirement, he and Ardys, while she was alive, spent every summer there from late May to late October. Just this past year he moved from Portland, Oregon, to make Camden his permanent residence and be close to his daughter, Victoria, who lives there.
Bob was a lifelong Episcopalian, an ardent family man, a long time aficionado of thoroughbred horse racing, and a passionate New England Patriots fan from the club’s inception. Besides his three children, he is survived by six grandchildren, of whom he was exceedingly proud.
A memorial celebration is planned for June 4, 2016 at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Condolences may be shared with the Allport family at www.longfuneralhomecamden.com. Arrangements are with the Long Funeral Home & Cremation Service, 9 Mountain Street, Camden.

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