We are saddened to note that longtime Robbinsdale historian Rolland “Rollie” Heywood died on August 20, 2023, at age 92. He is remembered as an invaluable font of knowledge for anyone who wanted to know anything about our town’s past, with an uncanny ability to tell stories from the 1860s as though he had been there.
Growing up in Robbinsdale and graduating in 1949, he liked to talk about his own escapades too, from climbing the water tower to hanging out with the pilots at the old Robbinsdale Airport, to owning fast cars.
Rollie had a good many tales to tell, and he had some favorite ones that he liked to tell again and again: about Dr. Samuelson’s hospital (which eventually became North Memorial), the quirks of Father Nolan (longtime pastor of Sacred Heart), the ladies of the Library Club, the Tower Garage, school notables such as Milo Mielke and E.J. Cooper, the infamous Captain Billy’s Whiz Bang magazine, on and on.
In the 1950s he served in Korea. He and his wife, Juanita, raised two sons and a daughter. He spent his working career at Control Data, including the early years when computers started as an idea long before they became a reality.
When Rollie became one of the few men to join the Library Club—a civic organization started in 1907 and still going strong—the group was devoted to preserving the old Robbinsdale Library, which was built in 1926 and served the community for 50 years until a new Hennepin County Library opened nearby in 1973. Because the Library Club had built and still owned the Robbinsdale Library building, the group dedicated it to public service.
The Historical Society was granted space within the building, which now houses the Museum and the Robbin Art Gallery and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
As a man about town, Rollie was a good news source for the Robbinsdale Post newspaper, and he appeared frequently in interviews on the local cable channel CCX.
Rollie liked to say that the city of Robbinsdale had more characters per square block than any other, and he proudly included himself on that list.
Robbinsdale Remembers Rollie Heywood, City’s Longtime Historian (ccxmedia.org)