Biography
Robert Arthur Cole was born and raised in Northfield, Vermont by his mother, Martha, who ran a small B&B out of their home for black travelers, and his father, Alonzo, an amateur musician. Robert was one of five children, three boys and two girls, all of whom attended local schools. According to his yearbook, Arthur participated in drama, basketball, chorus, and played the guitar in the school dance band, the Blue Jackets.
After graduation Cole worked for a time in a shoe repair shop and as a porter before enlisting in the Army. With WWII well underway, he was assigned to flight training at Tuskegee, Alabama as part of 332nd Fighter Group. A segregated unit, this group, along with the 447th Bomber Group, became known as the Tuskegee Airmen. Though Cole was fully trained on U.S. Fighters as part of the 99th Squadron, he was never deployed oversees. Finishing his training near the end of the war, he spent his final year of service barnstorming the United States performing with the Army Air Force demonstration team.
After the war, Cole returned home to Northfield and purchased the shoe repair shop he worked at prior to the war. He retrained on civilian aircraft and continued to fly out of the Barre-Montpelier Airport, now known as the Edward F. Knapp State Airport, in Berlin.
In 1949 he married Irena Elizabeth Pombar of Berlin, a second marriage for both. As an interracial marriage, the union was quite rare for its time and lasted until 1954. Cole lived in Northfield until the mid-1960s when he moved to the Baltimore, Maryland area. He died in Baltimore in 1968 at only 48-years-old.Education
Northfield High SchoolOccupation
Pilot
Shoemaker/Cobbler