Retailing executive, educator, and longtime civic activist Robert Straub Houston (87) died September 5, 2015, at his Chicago home, from congestive heart failure.
Robert Straub Houston was the son of John V. Houston, a railroad equipment manufacturer, and Mila Straub Houston, first business manager of Poetry magazine, and the grandson of Chicago municipal and county court judge John W. B. Houston, who wrote the first parole law for the State of Illinois, and architect Albert Straub. He was born in Chicago in 1927 and attended Chicago public schools before transferring to the Francis W. Parker School which he said opened the world of ideas to him and was a major intellectual influence on his life. Turning 18 just after the end of World War II, Houston was one of the last to be drafted and spent his time in the army at Camp Crowder, Missouri, where the big excitement was a weekend in Neosho (MO), and Fort Monmouth, New Jersey, where he spent weekends on leave in New York City. It was his introduction to the big world, he said, being 18, having cash in his pockets, and everything in Manhattan being free or at least cheap for a GI.
After graduating from Yale University in 1949 and feeling that all his older friends had seen the world courtesy Uncle Sam but not he, Houston took a freighter to Europe and spent the next three summers hitchhiking through every country in west Europe; in the winters he taught school in London, and then in the highlands of Scotland, and then worked in Germany as an education advisor for the US Army.
On his return home, he toured the country interviewing at department stores and settled back in Chicago working for Marshall Field’s where he rose to vice president, merchandising for men's and women's apparel and accessories. He always regarded himself as a yokel from the Midwest and enjoyed traveling the world and meeting the designers whose work Field’s showcased.
When ownership of Field’s changed, senior management also changed and Houston, wanting to stay in Chicago, did a 180-degree career change, first becoming executive vice president of the National Safety Council and then Midwest director of the Institute of International Education (IIE), which manages 200 international exchange programs including the US Fulbright Program. Houston found the range of students fascinating and particularly enjoyed organizing meetings to introduce these future international leaders to Chicago leaders and Chicago issues.
Throughout his life Houston loved politics and political campaigns. He told of making campaign posters when he was in grammar school for “Dwight Green for Governor” and “C. Wayland Curly Brooks for Senator," but it was his opposition to the Vietnam War that really got him into political campaigns with the Eugene McCarthy for President race. That led him to join Dick Simpson in founding the Independent Precinct Organization (IPO) which led to leadership roles in a series of often-successful campaigns for alderman, state representative and senator, and Illinois Constitutional Convention delegates. He also was active in a wide range of civic associations, serving on 40 boards including the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations, the Chicago Academy of Sciences, the Chicago Metro History Center, the Chicago World Trade Conference, the Cliff Dwellers, and the World Politics Program.
The day after his retirement from IIE in 1998, Houston shifted to volunteering through the Executive Service Corps as a consultant and coach to Chicago area schools and nonprofit organizations.
Houston is survived by his wife Susan, a retired college textbook editor and marketing executive, and their sons William, an angel investor in Chicago, and David, an architect in Boulder, Colorado; one grandchild, Nora; and a brother, John, in Chapel Hill, North Caroliina.
—Submitted by the family.
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