Robert D. Hecker

SIOUX CITY -- Robert D. Hecker, 86, of Sioux City, a retired registered architect who had designed many structures in Sioux City and the surrounding area, died Tuesday, March 16, 2010.

The family invites friends to a celebration of Robert's life on Tuesday, any time between 5 and 7 p.m., at the Marina Inn in South Sioux City, in the Monterey Room. Arrangements are under the direction of Meyer Brothers Colonial Chapel.

Robert Daniel Hecker was born in Sioux City on Aug. 7, 1923, the son of Julius and Agnes (Spalding) Hecker. He attended public schools in Sioux City, and graduated in 1941 from Central High School.

In his senior year in high school, Robert won a nationwide contest sponsored by the Nehi Bottling Company and was awarded a scholarship to attend the Kansas City Art Institute. After a short time there, he transferred to the University of South Dakota at Vermillion, and then to the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, where he was awarded a bachelor of arts degree in architecture in 1947.

At the University of Nebraska, Robert met the woman who was to become his wife of 64 years, Jeanne Fowler, and they were married on Feb. 8, 1946. Robert first practiced architecture at the firm of Brooks Borg in Des Moines. He returned to Sioux City in 1952 to open his own office, from which he retired in 1987. He was a member of the American Institute of Architects and the Iowa Chapter of the A.I.A.

Robert operated his own architectural firm under his name in Sioux City for 35 years. During that period, he designed or redesigned schools, churches, commercial buildings, post offices and private residences in Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota. He was the architect for the restoration of the building that is now the Martin Tower apartments in downtown Sioux City and also did architectural work for the Sioux Honey Association.

Among Robert's churches were First Christian Church, Third Presbyterian Church and the original design of the current First Unitarian Church, and he was the supervising architect for work on Shaare Zion Synagogue, all in Sioux City.

Schools he designed include Riverside High School (now an elementary school), Sunnyside Elementary School in Morningside and an addition to Sacred Heart School, all in Sioux City. He also produced plans for schools or additions to schools in, among other places, Alta, Aurelia and Moville in Iowa, and Wayne, Neb. He designed post offices in Cherokee and Sheldon, Iowa, and Lennox, S.D.

In retirement, Robert was able to spend more time on his hobby of building and flying model airplanes, particularly rubber-powered models. He was fascinated by the aircraft of the first half of the 20th century and recalled seeing the plane that inaugurated commercial service to Sioux City, a Ford Trimotor that landed on a grass strip. Robert was a member of the Academy of Model Aeronautics. He was also a member of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Robert came to a late-in-life love of gardening, and in his last years transformed his yard into a traffic-stopping floral display, growing all of the annuals from seeds each season. He was also admired around the nation among a select group for the original artwork annual Christmas cards that he created every year beginning with the first Christmas after he and his wife were married.

Survivors include his wife, Jeanne; his sister, Marilyn Schmitz of San Rafel, Calif.; two children, Felicia of Seattle, Wash., the associate director of the Middle East Center of the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle, and Donald of New York City and Brooklin, Maine, an editor at The New York Times.

Robert was predeceased by his parents and two of his three siblings, his sisters, Dorothy Lockwood and Jeanne Burt.

Memorials may be made to the Warner Museum of Aviation & Transportation in Sioux City.