Robert J Belyea

Robert “Bob” Belyea, a resident of Potsdam, died peacefully at his home on December 18, 2015. He was 93. He is survived by his wife of 71 years, Shirley, and his daughter Deborah Cady of Hannawa Falls. A son, Eric and a sister Ann White predeceased him. Funeral arrangements are with the Garner Funeral Home. Calling hours will be on Monday December 21, 2015 from 3pm to 7pm. A funeral service will be held at the funeral home on Tuesday, December 22, 2015 at 2:30pm with Father Howard Venette officiating.

He was born in Massena on May, 09 1922 the son of the late Dr. Leonard and Ruth (balch) Belyea, moving to Potsdam when he was 10. After graduation from Potsdam High School, he joined the Army Air Force during World War II and trained and qualified as a fighter pilot, but by then the military was looking at invading Japan and needed more bomber pilots, so he became a co-pilot in B-24s, B-17s and B-25s.

After the war he worked at the Racquette River Paper Company, eventually running the coating division for fancy coated papers. When the plant was sold, he moved to Van Ness Hardware Stores as a store manager, overseeing six or seven stores around the North Country. He was also helping a carpenter at Van Ness and decided he liked that better than traveling to a different store every day.

He was a technician with the building program at what is now SUNY Canton for 15 years, where he helped start the annual project of building modular homes. He retired in 1975.

Bob had a lifelong passion for the outdoors and woodworking. He was active to the end of his long life making canoes and collecting antiques.

“You’ve got to have something to do,” Bob often said and he did a lot. His home was filled with award-winning decoys and other bird carvings, and collectibles of several varieties: old glass power line insulators, bottles, horns and antlers, fishing flies, powder horns, arrowheads, 5,000-year-old stone canoe gouges, and bonsai trees.

Starting in the late 1950s he began bird carving. He won a Canadian national competition in 1968, a best-in-show in the amateur division at the U.S. national decoy show in Salisbury, Md., in 1971, and then turned his talents to building canoes, about one a year. He built about 30, including one of a single piece of birch bark that took him four years to find.

A digital camera turned him into an outstanding nature photographer.

He hunted and fished all his life, travelling well into northern Canada with his buddies. His favorite local angling spot was on Carry Reservoir, along the Raquette in Colton.

Bob’s home, which he and his family built by hand, was a museum of natural history and a regular gathering place for his many family and friends who were always eager to see his latest creations and acquisitions and to hear the stories of his fascinating life.

In lieu of flowers, the family has requested that memorial donations be made to the Potsdam Humane Society or Hospice and Palliative Care of St. Lawrence Valley.