Longtime Auburn businessman Robert J. Nolan, 83, owner of Bob Nolan's Sporting Goods, died Wednesday at Oneida Hospital. He was 83.

A lifelong resident of the city, Bob worked at Nolan's Shoe Store for his father, Clarence, then established the sporting goods store in 1953, which closed 51 years later in 2004.

“He was warm and generous,” his eldest daughter, Pam Sephara, said Friday. “No matter where you saw him, there was always a kid following, like the Pied Piper.”

Besides his eight children, Nolan had a number of “adopted” kids whom he mentored.

“He treated everybody that came to that house like family,” Pam said.

Sephara said her father was “old school,” extending credit to those who needed it without doing credit checks.

“He had a kind of magic about him, a magnetisim,” she said. “He drew all kinds of people to him. Even the nuts loved to come in and talk to him, and he would listen. Any time someone came to the store and asked, he gave,” she said. “He was a simple man who did things quietly, a behind-the-scenes kind of guy.”

Pam said everyone in the family called her father “Bob” rather than “Dad or ”Grandpa.“

“I think that came from when we worked with him,” she said. “We couldn't call him 'Dad' in the store, and the grandchildren picked that up. They called him 'Bob'-that's who he was.”

Pam said her father had thought he might want to be a doctor when he entered Niagara University in 1950.

“Every time someone was sick, he wanted to fix it,” she said. “He was fascinated by the workings of the human body.”

Another old school quality he had was frugality. “You didn't waste, you fixed it,” Pam said.

She remembered a favorite coat of Bob's, an old nylon jacket. It had a number of tears inside that couldn't be sewn, so he taped it with duct tape because he liked the coat.

Another favorite pastime of his was sitting in his garage with two TVs on to watch sports and other programs at the same time. People often came by to sit and watch with him, especially George Offenburg, his best buddy.

He loved the outdoors, but didn't learn to ski until he was 45. He organized a ski program through the Auburn Ski Club to Greek Peak and had busloads of skiers involved.

“He did everything for others,” Pam said. “I don't think he knew how to do anything for himself. Anything you needed, you'd call Dad. All you had to do is ask. Sometimes you didn't even ask. He just did.”

Pam remembered borrowing Bob's wheelbarrow when she was first married.

“He bought us a wheelbarrow because he knew we needed one and he just wanted us to have our own.”

Once the business closed, he mowed his lawn a lot and learned how to go shopping at Wegmans, she said. During a thunderstorm this week, her mom joked, “That's your dad mowing the lawn in Heaven.”

“He's already made contact in different ways,” Pam said. “It gives me peace to know he's there and he's always watching over us.”

Sephara regretted that her father couldn't find a facility that would take him with a tracheotomy anywhere in Cayuga County. He had contracted pneumonia after having suffered a stroke when he went to University Hospital, 70 days before he died.

He had to leave there once he was stable, but beds were full in the Auburn hospital, and other facilities couldn't accommodate him, so he went to Oneida.

In some ways she thought his last days might have been more comfortable if his family had been nearby instead of traveling that distance.

But even while he was in the hospital, the nurses couldn't resist dropping in to see him and to say goodbye, they just kept coming.

“Everyone that he touched loved him,” Pam said

Staff writer Kathleen Barran can be reached at 253-5311 ext. 238 or kathleen.barran@lee.net