Editor’s note: This story was published in 2014. Robert “Bob” Nash died in 2016.
At the beginning of each Discover Bert Nash event, Steve Glass, chairman of the Bert Nash Governing Board of Directors, asks guests to introduce themselves and share if they have ties to the mental health center.
At a May 13 Discover event — a community outreach program designed to inform people about the range of mental health services offered at Bert Nash — one guest said he had a very personal connection to the man for whom the Center is named.
“I’ve had ties to Bert Nash for 83 years,” the guest said.
“I’m his son.”
Bob Nash is the youngest child of Bert and Ruth Nash. His older sister, Barbara, lives in San Jose, Calif., where she has resided for many years. Bob and Barbara Nash were teenagers when their father died 67 years ago.
Bert Nash collapsed during a presentation Feb. 18, 1947, at a Lions Club meeting at the Eldridge Hotel in downtown Lawrence. He suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and never regained consciousness.
The death of his father and the way he died had a lasting impact on Bert Nash’s only son.
“Knowing that my father died while giving a public presentation, I have been scared to death to do that,” Bob Nash said. “I have only done that three times in my whole life, and one was at a Bert Nash Center event.”
Bob Nash’s father was only 48 when he died.
“It was on my mother’s birthday,” Bob Nash said. “I was home at the time, as was my sister and my mom. I don’t remember how we were notified. But I do know we all made a beeline to the hospital. We were in the room when they pronounced him dead. I had just turned 16.”
In a letter of condolence, Karl Menninger, who had been one of Bert Nash’s professors at Washburn University, called him “my most distinguished student.” The Lawrence Journal-World said of Bert Nash, “Few men have given so much time and energy to advance the cause of child welfare.”
The legacy of Bert Nash and his pioneering work in the field of child welfare lives on through the mental health center that bears his name. Three years after his death, community leaders established the Bert Nash Mental Health Clinic, as it was called then, as a “living memorial” to the renowned University of Kansas educational psychologist.
Bob Nash has obvious close personal ties to Bert Nash, the man. His ties to the Center haven’t been as close, mostly because of distance. For 18 years, Bob Nash was the medical director for the Wyoming State Hospital in Evanston. Five years ago, he retired and moved back to Kansas, which has afforded him the opportunity to become more connected to the Center.
“It’s nice to be updated on things,” Bob Nash said after attending the Discover Bert Nash event. “Actually, not just updated; I learned some new things.”
“It’s a legacy we take seriously,” said David Johnson, Bert Nash Center CEO. “We have made every effort to continue the work Bert Nash started.”
Bob Nash has lived a private life in comparison to his father. During his short-lived but ascending career, Bert Nash made a name for himself as a tireless advocate for improved mental health services for children.
“In the year before his death, he made more than 200 presentations to Rotary Clubs, to schools, to city councils, to whatever, across the state,” Bob Nash said. “He was a busy person. He was gone a lot.”
Bob Nash and his sister, Barbara, a retired psychologist, are close in age, only 14 months apart.
“I was an unexpected child,” Bob Nash said. “My father was certain my mother could not get pregnant while she was breastfeeding. He told her he would buy her a fur coat if she got pregnant. She got pregnant, and she got a fur coat.”
A leader in the community and within his profession, in his time off Bert Nash was an avid sports fan. He played golf, pingpong, softball and tennis and regularly attended KU basketball and football games with his family. He also served on the KU Athletic Board. One of Bert Nash’s golf buddies was Phog Allen, the legendary KU basketball coach.
“I got to caddie for both of them,” Bob Nash said. “Phog liked to play no matter what the weather. There would be snow on the ground and he would paint the golf ball red so he could find it. He also had more clubs in his golf bag than anybody else at that time. It’s common now, but it wasn’t then. That was back before the time of carts. So I would lug his golf bag around, but I enjoyed doing it.”
At home, Bob Nash said his father wasn’t a public figure. He was, well, his dad.
“He was really just dad at home. He didn’t stick his chest out. He was quiet. He did a lot of reading,” Bob Nash said. “He came home for lunch every day and took a nap, and I adopted that habit.”
While Bert Nash’s work kept him away from home for stretches, he and his wife, Ruth, liked to do things as a couple when they had the opportunity. They were active in Lawrence social circles.
“They belonged to bridge clubs and they belonged to a pingpong club,” Bob Nash said.
When Bob Nash was growing up, the family lived in a two-story house at 725 Ohio St. in Lawrence.
“My mom continued to live in the house after my dad died,” Bob Nash said. “It was difficult for her. She was less active for a while. She never remarried. She lived there until she died in 1974 at the age of 75. She died of a heart attack. Both of my parents were healthy up until the day they died.”
While Bert Nash lived an active lifestyle, he was a heavy smoker, which wasn’t uncommon at the time.
“He smoked a couple of packs a day, and he never tried to stop,” Bob Nash said. “Smoking was just what you did back then. There wasn’t the information back then that smoking was unhealthy. I think if there would have been, he would have tried to stop, but I also don’t think it would have helped. He had been smoking for over 20 years. The damage had been done. My mom didn’t smoke, and basically neither of one of them drank.”
Bob Nash said his parents modeled what it meant to be a loving spouse and parent.
“They had a great relationship. I never saw anger from one parent to the other, or to us kids,” Bob Nash said. “There was never open anger in that family of four.”
Bob Nash excelled academically growing up — after his seventh-grade year he was promoted to the ninth grade — but he wasn’t as comfortable socially.
“I had some adjustment problems in junior high,” Bob Nash said. “I wasn’t as sociable as my sister. That got to be more embedded after I skipped my eighth-grade year, which put me in the same class as my sister. So she had her social group, and I was a tag-along. Even when I went to KU, in my fraternity I was known as The Kid, because of my age.”
Barbara and Bob Nash graduated from high school a few months after their father died. After high school, Bob Nash attended KU and later KU Medical School. He had been a primary care doctor for seven years when he decided to pursue a degree in psychiatry. Bob Nash said his father influenced his career path.
“When I was practicing medicine, I became much more aware I was interested in what was going on in someone’s life and heart than in their body,” Bob Nash said.
Bob Nash and his second wife, Barbara, live in Olathe, where he practiced psychiatry for 21 years. He has three children from his first marriage and two stepsons. He also has one granddaughter and two step-granddaughters. Bob Nash retired five years ago. Now he spends time reading, gardening and doing volunteer work.
Nearly 70 years after Bert Nash died, Bob Nash is pleased the work his dad started has continued. He thinks his dad would be pleased, too.
“There was no egotism in his soul; it wasn’t there. He was just doing what he thought was the right thing to do,” Bob Nash said. “He was in the right place at the right time and he was the right person. It certainly was his calling, whether he considered it that or not.
Now, when Bob Nash visits the Bert Nash Center, he can’t help but think about his father.
“I like to think about all of the lives that have been changed because of my father’s work,” Bob Nash said. “That’s what I think of when I see Bert Nash.”
There are only two people in the world that can say they have direct ties to the man Bert Nash. Bob Nash feels privileged to be one of those people.
“I was very fortunate to have been born into that family,” Bob Nash said.