Robert J. Squier

A graveside service for Robert J. “Bob” Squier, 91, Portal, was held April 29 at Paradise Cemetery, near Portal.
Mr. Squier died Sunday, April 11, 2010, in Tucson.
He was born Dec. 22, 1918, in Decatur, Mich.
Mr. Squier served as a pilot in World War II with the U.S. Naval Air Force squadron, guarding ships sailing across the North Atlantic against German submarines.
After the war, he attended San Francisco State University and earned a Ph.D. from the University of California-Berkeley in 1964. His doctoral dissertation focused on the archaeology of the Olmec, a lost civilization predating the Maya in Veracruz, Mexico.
Mr. Squier resided in Lawrence, Kan., from 1958 to 1989. Along with Charles Valentine, he was responsible for founding the department of anthropology at Kansas University and served as its first chairman in 1964 and intermittently thereafter.
In 1989, Mr. Squier moved with his wife to Portal, where both were active in the small community near the famous birding refuge in the Chiricahua Mountains.
He married Evelyn O’Leary in 1945. She survives, of Portal.
The family suggests memorials to the Audubon Society.