Robert Goldstein

I first met my Uncle Robert when he was 74 years old at his grandson Ryon’s graduation from high school in 2004 in La Jolla, California. I was friends with Robert’s daughter Joanie (my cousin and mother of Ryon and Kristina). Uncle Robert’s first wife, Trudy Hartstirn, was my dad’s sister. Uncle Robert took an interested in my work in Cambodia and we became friends after that. He would send me articles about Cambodia that were published in the New York Times and we would email or chat on the phone - sometimes about world affairs or politics, but mostly about our favorite topic: how his grandchildren, Ryon and Kristina, were doing. They were the joy of his senior years. Uncle Robert had a very successful career in finance at Abraham and Strauss, one of the largest department stores in New York City. He told me that if he could do his life over he would have liked to work for the US Foreign Service which places professionals in US Embassies around the world. He had an interest in international work and a kind heart. He was very supportive of his niece Sarah Baird’s nonprofit organization Let There Be Light International which has helped 1.2 million people in off-grid Africa to gain access to solar energy in their homes and health clinics. Sarah is married to Ben Kerman (Robert sister’s June’s son). He also supported my humanitarian aid non-profit organization, Friendship with Cambodia. The note he sent with his first donation in 2008 said “This donation is for a cow in memory of Joan Graf.” A cow helps a family out of poverty, because they can sell her calf each year. He supported women’s micro-credit, flood relief, and a girl living in rural poverty to get a high school education. In the following years, he helped three disadvantaged young women graduate from university. He was very generous. Uncle Robert was born in 1929, the first year of the Great Depression, which lasted for 10 years. He was 10 years old when World War II started. He was 21 years old when the Korean War started and he served as a first lieutenant in the US Airforce, based in the US. He was 46 when the Vietnam War started. These are some of the tragic major world events that impacted his life. Uncle Robert didn’t have an easy life. His first marriage to Gertrude (Trudy) Hartstirn, ended in divorce when their children Alan and Joan were young. In spite of a stormy marriage, Uncle Robert supported Trudy for the rest of her life, until she passed in 2020. Fortunately, he had a happy second marriage with Helen. I remember the first time I visited Uncle Robert and Aunt Helen in their apartment in La Jolla. It was beautiful and I thought it looked like pictures in a magazine. Helen proudly showed me the bathroom sink, which she said was designed by someone famous and I indiscreetly said, “It looks like a fish tank.” Fortunately, I did not say that their adorable little dog with long flowing white hair looked just like my mom’s dust mop. I really enjoyed Helen. Tragically, Uncle Robert’s son Alan died young, at age 27, from an aneurysm. He lost his daughter Joan in 2001 to breast cancer when she was around 41 years old. These heart-breaking losses weighed heavily on him. Helen, passed in 2020, which was also very hard on him. He always made a point of remembering Alan, Joan, and Helen and visited the cemetery on their birthdays. Family was very important to him. I knew Uncle Robert during the last 21 years of his life. He had many attributes that I really admire. He was very kind, especially to his family. When Joan was struggling with breast cancer he and Helen moved from Florida to La Jolla, California so they could live near Joan and her children and be supportive. He was a generous humanitarian, non-judgmental, positive, and enthusiastic. He always made well-deserved glowing comments about his grandchildren, Kristina and Ryon. He was very proud of their academic achievements, numerous talents including athletics, and their successful careers. And he was proud of them being good kind people. Both Ryon and Kristina did such a beautiful job of supporting and caring for their Grandma Trudy and Grandpa Robert in their final years. Of all my four aunts and four uncles, I was closest to Uncle Robert. I feel so fortunate to have had a brief conversation with him on the phone about a week before he passed and was able to tell him that I loved him and he said “I love you.” Those words capture all that really matters in life; they will be with me forever. Bless his soul. He will always live in our hearts. Love to all of you, Bhavia Wagner (my birth name: Carol Hartstirn) Photos: Robert (Bob) Goldstein and Gertrude (Trudy) Hartsirn’s wedding with Bhavia’s mother Emily Hartstirn as the maid-of-honor and Robert’s brother-in-law Max Kerman as the best man. Ryon Graf’s high school graduation photo: Robert Goldstein (grandfather), Barbara Burton (step-mother), Ryon Graf, Kristina Graf, Roy Graf (father), Trudy Hart (grandmother).