Introduction

Biography

Robert was the son of Ja­cob Wei­den­sall.

He gra­du­at­ed from Get­tys­burg Col­lege, Penn­syl­van­ia, in­tend­ing to be a mi­nis­ter. He at­tend­ed se­mi­na­ry in Get­tys­burg, but was un­able to com­plete his stu­dies due to ill health.

After teach­ing for al­most two years, he went to Was­hing­ton, DC, in the spring of 1863, where he worked as a car­pen­ter for the ar­my quar­ter­mas­ter of­fice. Lat­er that year, he joined the rail­road con­struct­ion corps, serv­ing six months with the Ar­my of the Po­to­mac and near­ly a year with the Ar­my of Cum­ber­land and Ten­nes­see.

In 1866, af­ter a few months black­smith­ing in the Penn­syl­van­ia oil re­gion, he re­turned to Hol­li­days­burg, where he helped or­gan­ize a Young Man’s Chris­tian As­so­ci­ation (YMCA). That same year he went to Oma­ha, Ne­bras­ka, where he was a su­per­in­ten­dent in Un­ion Pa­ci­fic Rail­road’s car shops. While there, he be­came ac­tive in the Oma­ha YMCA and was elect­ed its vice pre­si­dent in 1868. Lat­er that year, he was made a YMCA em­ploy­ee as its first field sec­re­ta­ry to or­ga­nize YMCA’s along the Un­ion Pa­cific line.

During 54 years of ser­vice, Un­cle Ro­bert, as he was called, pio­neered the YMCA move­ment in schools and col­leg­es, pro­posed ge­ne­ral sec­re­ta­ries as­so­ci­ations and train­ing schools for sec­re­ta­ries, can­vassed the Am­eri­can South, and de­vel­oped state work in the Mid­west.

Rural work was a spe­cial ob­ject of his at­ten­tion. He pro­posed and laid the foun­da­tion for suc­cess­ful coun­ty le­vel work, and or­gan­ized the first rur­al YMCA as­so­ci­ation in Du­Page, Il­li­nois, in 1873.