Robert William Siekman

BUCKFIELD — Robert William “Bob” Siekman, an organic chemist and chemistry teacher, died at his home in Buckfield on Friday, October 5, 2012 at age 74, following a long illness. The cause was pulmonary fibrosis.

Born in South Bend, IN on January 13, 1938, he graduated from South Bend Central High School in 1956 and from the University of Pennsylvania in 1960. In 1965, he earned a PhD in organic chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he then worked as a postdoctoral fellow. In 1966 he joined the faculty of Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University as Assistant Professor of Organic Chemistry. He later served as Carnegie Mellon’s Dean of Freshmen and as Director of Admissions.

Drawn by a deep attachment to Maine’s people and natural beauty, he and his wife Margot moved in 1973 to Hebron, where they taught at Hebron Academy. During the 1990s he worked as an organic chemist at the Foundation for Blood Research and at Binax, Inc. in Portland, before forming his own consulting company, Synthetic Colloids, LLC.

One of his greatest sources of pride was the building with his own hands of the family home in Buckfield. It was at this property on Bear Pond Road that he dedicated great energy and derived great pleasure from pursuits such as gardening, cultivating highbush blueberries, haying from the fields surrounding the house and building and operating a small sawmill.

Mr. Siekman is survived by his wife of 44 years, Margot Siekman (nee Butterfield); his children, Elizabeth “Betsy” Graves and Robert Matthew “Matt” Siekman, both of Portland, and Daniel McNeil Siekman of Beijing, China; his sister and brother-in-law, Ann Siekman and Roger Crockett of Hebron and his sister and brother-in-law, Jane and Phillip Spencer of Cassopolis, MI.

The family will hold an open-air meal and celebration at the family home at 538 Bear Pond Road in Buckfield on Saturday, October 13 at noon. All are warmly invited, though encouraged to notify of their attendance by leaving a message at 224-7457. In lieu of flowers the family requests that donations be made in his name to the Norway Memorial Library.