Robert N. Gilmore III | Obituaries

Robert N. Gilmore III LUDLOW — Robert N. Gilmore III, retired Ludlow restaurateur, past chairman of the Ludlow Village Board of Trustees, succumbed to a decades-long illness on Thursday, July 9, 2020, as a patient in the Jack Byrne Center for Palliative & Hospice Care at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Memorial Hospital in Lebanon, New Hampshire. Bob, a Ludlow resident since 1975, owned and operated the venerated Nikki’s Restaurant at the base of Okemo Mountain for nearly 30 years. He sold the business and retired in 2006. Along the way, Nikki’s earned numerous accolades, including a Wine Spectator award of excellence spanning nearly 15 years. In addition, the restaurant earned 3 Stars in the esteemed Mobil Travel Guide. His civic contributions included terms on the Vermont National Bank Board of Directors, president of the Ludlow Chamber of Commerce, an officer for the Ludlow Board of Trustees since 1988, an elected position, and vice chairman of the Ludlow Water Commission. Bob also served as a member of the Norris Cotton Cancer Research Center Board of Directors for 12 years beginning in 1990 and ending in 2002. On July 6, the Town and Village of Ludlow, Vermont, passed a resolution dedicating the former Lamere Square pedestrian bridge in Bob’s honor, renaming it the Robert N. Gilmore Footbridge. In 2005, he was among 24 individuals chosen to participate in the Bristol Myers Squibb Lance Armstrong “Tour of Hope” to promote awareness of the pursuit of clinical trials in cancer research. The Tour took him from San Diego, California, to Washington, DC, over the course of eight days, by bicycle. The riders consisted of cancer survivors and clinicians in the field of cancer research. They were met on Oct. 9 in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Tammy on a wet and stormy day on the Washington Mall, by over a thousand people who turned out to greet them. Bob often remarked that The Tour was one of the high points of his life. Bob’s journey as a cancer patient and then as a survivor became the defining experience of his life. After beating seemingly insurmountable odds, he went on to a marriage that lasted until his death and had two children along the way. His diagnosis in 1992 was for Stage 4 metastatic melanoma with high morbidity. He would have none of it. Bob leaves behind a legion of friends and family on both coasts of the country, as well as relations in England and Ireland. He is survived by his wife of 25 years, Beth Oldenburg, a lifelong Ludlow resident; and their two children, a daughter, Blakely, an elementary school teacher in Chester, Vermont, and a son Taylor, a diesel mechanic. In addition, he is survived by his siblings, Phoebe Tanner of Richmond, California; Blake, currently a resident of Calistoga, California, in the Napa Valley, a place Bob loved to visit in recent years; and a brother, David of Brooklyn, New York. A memorial and gathering will be announced at a later date.