I was born January 6, 1926, in Vernon Township, near Mt. Sterling, Iowa. My mother was the daughter of Robert E. Agnew, Sr. and his second wife, Hester Browne Agnew. I Was named Robert after my grandfather Agnew and David and after my grandfather David R. Hornbaker.

I attended a one-room country school, called Vernon Prairie and Ward, from 1931 to 1939. After that, I went to a third-rate high school in Bonaparte, Iowa, from 1939 to 1943, where I distinguished myself, in my senior year, by winning fifth place in the state typing contest, with a net of 76 words per minute, on an old Remington up-right.

During my childhood, I spent spent most of my time with my grandparents David R. and Ida Belle Hornbaker, the greatest grandparents anyone could have. My grandfather kept eight head of horses and a stallion, Old King. He was a big farmer and lived high on the hog. I well remember his first auto, a 1924 Willys-Knight touring car, with side-curtains, the only one in the county, and his first tractor, an 18-32 Case cross-mount, that pulleyed a threshing machine. Their house was lighted with acetylene gas, and I vividly remember helping my grandfather, load the out-door, hole in-the ground acetylene plant with calcium carbide, in red barrels, from Union Carbide. Calcium carbide was fed into water to form acetylene gas. My grandmother also had a player piano, that is, one that played from perforated paper rolls.

After high-school, I wanted to be a pilot, and immediately join the Army Air Corp, but my parents would not consent, which was required at 17. So I left for the Iowa State College of Agricultural and Mechanical Arts, in Ames, Iowa, now called Iowa State University, with about $100, the proceeds from the sale of my 1930 Model A Ford Coupe. My father got me a ride to the John Marrell packing plant, in Ottumwa, Iowa, with Otis Harkness and a truckload of hogs. That was my parents entire contribution to my college education. I hitch-hiked from Ottumwa to Ames.

At Iowa State, in 1943, I fired a furnace in an apartment building, for a cot in the basement, and worked in the kitchen in a girls dormitory, for my meals. On the farm, in the Great Depression, in the 1930s, I did some dirty work, cleaned horse and cow manure out of the barn, with a horse-drawn manure spreader, cleaned chicken ‏[droppings]‏ out of the hen house, with the same spreader, and castrated pigs, which was necessary to prevent a boar-hog taste that would have made them unfit to eat. But cleaning the dishes in that girls' dormitory was the dirtiest job I ever did. I also worked at odd jobs for tuition, not covered by a small scholarship, books, and other necessities, like soap and laundry.

Originally, I wanted to be a veterinarian like my mother's cousin, Sam Lindsay who made a lot of money, and owned several farms. As a result, during the summer of 1943, I took pre-vet, including a double dose of bugology, Biology 101 and 102, I think they called it. We dissected fetal pigs and lumbricus terrestris, better known as earthworms, in the top story of the Biology building. Can still smell the formaldehyde. Also, spent a lot of time squinting into a microscope, at navicula, spyrogyra, closterium, and other micro-organisms. By the end of the summer, I knew, for sure, that I didn't want to be a vet. So I switched to a Science major, to be a Physics Professor.

In the fall of 1943, the Navy established a V-12 officer training program at Iowa State. Those guys got housing, in newly-built Friley Hall, books, Apprentice Seaman clothes, and $21 a month to spend any way they wanted. I took the test, marking an X next Navy, not Army, and was accepted into that program, in February 1944. What a godsend. I spent the next 28 months there, studying Electrical Engineering, and was discharged in June 1946, as a newly-minted Ensign, after the war was over. I spent another term as a civilian, and graduated in December 1946, with a B.S. E.E. Iowa State even gave me a paper that said I had the highest scholastic record of any graduate in 1946.

Some of the guys who took the test with me, in 1943, marked an X next to Army, and joined the Army Specialized Training Program, the Army's version of V-12. After one-semester however, the Army decided they didn't need any more officers; they needed men to invade Normandy. When I was finishing up, in the fall of 1946, these guys, who marked an X next to Army and didn't get killed, were coming back to pick up on their first year. Since then, I have been very careful about where I marked an X.

I put an X next to Navy because my father had been in the Army, in WWI, and I didn't want to do anything he had done. Also, if I had to kill people, I'd rather kill Japs, as they were then called, rather than Germans, since my pre-Revolutionary ancestors were German. Ironically, I later married a Japanese.

After Iowa State, I went to law school at the University of Iowa, on the G.I. Bill, and graduated with a Juris Doctor ‏(J.D.)‏, in February 1949.

I then took a job as a Patent Attorney with General Electric in Schenectady, New York, which did not turn out to be a very challenging job. I still had some time on the G.I. Bill, and always wanted to live, for a while, in New York City. So, in the fall of 1949, I went to Columbia Law School and received a Master of Laws ‏(LLM)‏ in 1951. What I have often referred to as that thin veneer of respectability, a law degree from an Ivy League School.

During my time at Columbia, I took several seminars, with smart Jewish boys, on the Columbia Law Review, for top students. For the first time in my life, I was the dumbest kid in the class, by far. I never dreamed anybody had IQs that high, probably 200 or more.

Before leaving New York City, in the fall of 1950, to look for a job in the mid-west, I wanted to see the inside of a large Wall Street law firm. I would tell them I was looking for a job. Cahil, Gordon and Reindel was one of the first, chronologically, that I went to. I never wanted or expected a job offer, and was pretty loose. I was referred up the partnership ladder to John Cahill and Harold Reindel, who jointly interviewed me, in September 1950, not their hiring season. It was clearly an outstanding interview, because Cahill offered me a job, then and there. I was on the spot. They only hired Law Review from Harvard, Yale, and Columbia, guys like those in my seminars. I asked for some time to think it over. Said I had dreamed of starting at the bottom and working up, but didn't know if I wanted to start at the top and work down, which is what I did. Cahill then gave me a sales pitch. Said if I didn't cut it, they would be the first to tell me, but, with Cahill, Gordon on my Resume he said, I could go anywhere. Sounded good and I hired on.

During most of 1951, I worked on Graver v. Linde, a famous Supreme Court Patent case, including a contempt trail, in the Norther District of Indiana, in Hammond, before Judge Dewey.

About this time, my draft board, in Iowa, sent me a notice to report for induction into the Army: V-12 was not then considered prior active duty, under the Selective Service System. But the Navy had a policy of ordering their officers, I was then a Lieutenant junior grade, to active duty to keep them out of the Army. I asked for that duty, got it, and reported to the Twelfth Navel District Public Works Office, in San Bruno, California, in January 1952. I ended up in Guam, where I spent the year 1953.

After Guam, in January 1954, I went back to Cahill, Gordon, in New York and started work for John Sonnett, a partner who had been an Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust, under Truman, and wrote the Pearl Harbor whitewash paper. Sonnett sent me to San Francisco, with about ten others, to work on the International Oil Cartel case for his client, Standard Oil of California. Three thousand miles just to make a U-turn.

Three years of that, I decided to stay in California. After a three-month trip to Europe, including France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, I became an Assistant U.S. Attorney ‏(AUSA)‏ in Los Angeles, from 1958-1960, where I prosecuted over 50 criminal cases, about half before juries. Following the U.S. Attorney's Office, I worked for Lyon & Lyon, the largest patent firm west of Chicago which imploded much later and was then a nominal partner with Thomas P. Mahoney. It was really a partnership of Mahoney and his secretary, Ms. Auld. I called the firm Mahoney and Auld. During that time I started representing Yamaha. How do you get a client like that? Alice Jingu was the only good secretary in the U.S. Attorney's Office. I treated her especially well to get her to do my work. When her husband, Jim Jingu later started Yamaha in the early 60s, I got the job.

Sam Lindenberg, who was with Lyon & Lyon when I was, started his own firm and began referring his patent and trademark litigation to me. When he suddenly died in 1974, I joined his surviving partners to form the predecessor of my present firm, Freilich, Hornbaker and Rosen. Not much interesting has happened since then.

Robert's Obituary:
Robert David Hornbaker, 91, of Los Angeles, California, died Monday, June 18, 2017, at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center from complications from pancreatic cancer.

Robert was born in rural Bonaparte, Iowa ‏(Vernon Township)‏ on January 6, 1926 to Phil S. Hornbaker and Mary Agnew Hornbaker. He was named after his great grandfathers Robert Agnew and David Roten Hornbaker. He was the oldest of three children and was preceded in death by his parents; his sister, Norma Hornbaker; and his brother, Dean Hornbaker.

Robert is survived by his wife of 42 years, Nobuko Fujita Hornbaker. He is also survived by his niece, Lea Ann Hornbaker Keller and husband Robert of Culpeper, Virginia; nephew, Michael Hornbaker and wife April of Rockwall, Texas; niece, Mary Hornbaker Benton and husband John of Fair Oaks, California; and niece, Julia Hornbaker Malloy and husband Dan of Camdenton, Missouri; ten great nieces and nephews; eight great-great nieces and nephews; and, his beloved dogs JoJo and Vivian.

Robert was raised in rural Van Buren County, Iowa and attended the Vernon Prairie and Ward one-room school from 1931 to 1939. He graduated from Bonaparte High School in 1943. That same year he tried to enlist in the Army Air Corp, but he was underage ‏(17)‏ and his parents would not sign a waiver. He instead left home to attend Iowa State College of Agricultural and Mechanical Arts ‏(now Iowa State University)‏, where he worked at various jobs to pay for his college tuition and expenses, lived on a basement cot, and was still able to graduate with an Electrical Engineering degree ‏(B.S.E.E)‏ in 1946, with the highest scholastic record of any graduate.

During his time at Iowa State College, he joined the Navy's V-12 Officer Training program and was discharged as an Ensign in 1946, having completed his training. He then attended the University of Iowa School of Law and later received a Juris Doctor ‏(J.D.)‏ in 1949. He moved to New York and worked as a Patent Attorney with General Electric in Schenectady, N.Y. He later decided to move to New York City to attend Columbia Law School, where he received a Master of Laws ‏(LLM)‏ in 1951. Upon graduation, the famous New York City law firm, Cahill, Gordon and Reindel, hired Robert to work in their patent law practice. While at the firm, he worked on the precedent-setting US Supreme Court case, Graver Tank & Mfg. Co. v. Linde Air Products, a controversial case concerning patent infringement where the court established when the doctrine of equivalents should be applied.

At the end of 1951, the United States Navy inducted Robert into active duty. He was initially stationed in San Bruno, California, but eventually served on a ship and was stationed in Guam for all of 1953. After release from the Navy, Robert returned to Cahill, Gordon and Reindel and was assigned to their San Francisco office to work on the International Oil Cartel case, on behalf of his client, Standard Oil of California. He resided in California ever since.

He became an Assistant U.S. Attorney ‏(AUSA)‏ in Los Angeles from 1958-60, where he prosecuted over 50 federal criminal cases, many before juries. After the U.S. Attorney's Office, he worked for Lyon & Lyon, the largest patent firm west of Chicago and later became a partner with Thomas P. Mahoney. In 1974, Robert joined other partners to form the firm Freilich, Hornbaker, and Rosen of West Los Angeles, where Robert worked for the next 40 years as a patent lawyer.

Robert was a member of the Los Angeles Athletic Club for over 50 years, and known as someone who exercised regularly and maintained a healthy diet. Prior to his illness, Robert could still wear his officer uniform from the Navy. Up until just recently, Robert maintained two classic Porsches and over the years would thrill his nephew, nieces and eventually their children, with exuberant drives around the streets and freeways of Los Angeles. He returned to his family farm near Bonaparte, Iowa, each year, and would spend his time reconnecting with family and friends.

Robert recently published books pertaining to his experience attending the Vernon Prairie one-room school and a family history book documenting the Hornbaker family. Copies of both books were donated to the Keosauqua Library's Genealogy Room.

Robert's remains will be cremated and his ashes interned separately at Thompson Cemetery, near his boyhood farm in Iowa, and in the family cemetery of his wife, Nobuko, in Kurashiki, Japan.

Source: Robert's obituary.