Having spent much of her early life in Moss Bluff, Robin had a powerful affinity for the people and the area that lent itself well when later in life she became involved in writing a book that would feature among its locations that very place.
Robin Deann Treadway was born in San Antonio, Texas, in 1959. She was the daughter of LaVerna (nee Arnold), a nurse, and William Rockus Treadway III, a fabricator. The family soon moved to Moss Bluff, settling in a property on Bozo Road. She attended the old Moss Bluff Elementary on School Lane, where classmates still remember her. Robin was always something of a tomboy, always game for any adventure. As her partner of over 20 years, I remember the many tales Robin would tell of her childhood riding bicycles with her friends on the leafy lanes or hanging out at Gilmore\’s Country Store, with its iconic pickle barrel.
At the age of 11, Robin and her family moved again. This time it was to Arizona, the birthplace of her Mother, where they settled in Globe. Robin quickly took to the Western lifestyle, riding horses and raising steers. She was a member of the High School Choir, and after after graduating, tried her hand as a professional singer in the local bars and at weddings. Alongside this, she supported herself through a number of other jobs, a cook at a bowling alley cafe and various retail positions, before finally deciding to follow in her Mother’s footsteps and pursue a career in nursing.
So, from 1993-1997, Robin studied at Central Arizona College in Coolidge, and proudly graduated as an RN. She always had a natural understanding and empathy for the less fortunate and elderly, and spent much of her ensuing career caring for such patients. She was only two years out of nursing college when we first met in 1999. As I ran my own web design business, I had the freedom to hang-out with Robin and experience much of what she did in her professional life. I remember the times she would drive out to see patients on the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation. It was not always the safest journey after dark, but Robin put her faith in God and took it all in her stride.
But Moss Bluff and Louisiana were never far from her heart. She would often say \”You can take the girl out of the South, but you can\’t take the South out of the girl.\”
While she was at her best caring for the old and vulnerable, Robin’s work would sometimes take her into quite illustrious circles, attending to the families of such people as Stevie Nicks (Fleetwood Mac), and movie star Chuck Norris.
Over the years, Robin’s own family grew as her children from an early and failed marriage delivered a series of five grandkids.
In 2011, a tragic event took place that took from Robin two of her most precious possessions, her nursing career and her singing voice. An unsatisfactory medical procedure left her with damage to her vocal chords and suffering from acute Neuropathy.
Around that time I had developed several online stores, and with her nursing career effectively over, Robin became my partner in business, too. One of our stores involved selling spectacles to followers of the Steampunk and Goth lifestyles. As a big fan of Gothic/Vampire fiction, Robin was in her element years later when together we visited Whitby in England, the birthplace of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. By strange coincidence, it was also around then that much of our of general web design business had become centered on Louisiana, primarily Morgan City and New Orleans. For Robin, it represented a fond trip down memory lane.
During those years, Robin returned to a passion of her youth, writing. While she had her own literary projects, such as Jayne, Counting Stars, and The Girl, she had always said that we should write a book based around the dramatic events that unfolded in our lives in 2004. She began a dedicated campaign to encourage me as a onetime writer also to do so. Eventually, I agreed, and we began work on the book that would feature Moss Bluff among its settings. On a more personal note, the two of us were finally due to be married before the pandemic interrupted our plans. Sadly, Robin passed away on November 18, 2020, once again as a consequence of another medical procedure. The book is continuing to be written, and I will keep everyone updated through The Gazette of its progress and publication.
Robin Keen
