KNOX — Robert Briggs Whipple — a farmer devoted to his land, his family, and his town — died on Friday, Nov. 23, 2007, at Albany Medical Center of complications following surgery. He was 77.
Mr. Whipple was a determined man with a gravelly voice but a courtly manner. He is described as a "gentleman" by a political adversary, Alexander Gordon, who says Mr. Whipple always put the good of the public first.
"He had a broad presence in the community," said the longtime Knox Supervisor, Michael Hammond. "He was a hard-working individual. He really applied himself to reach his goals."
"Farming was his avocation," said his daughter, Deborah Degan.
"We were partners on the farm for the last seven years," said his son, Brian. "We were best friends also."
Mr. Whipple was always expanding and improving his Knox farm. "He just recently achieved one of his dreams, a 50-year-long dream, building a vegetable shed," said Brian Whipple of the Malachi Farms vegetable stand. "We hope to keep that going as well as the maple syrup and everything that he did. We’ll try to keep it going the way he would have liked it."
"That’s all he ever wanted to do...He spent much of his boyhood helping out on the farm," said Ms. Degan.

Robert Whipple was born in Albany on May 22, 1930, the son of the late Alfred A. and Grace Briggs Whipple. His father was the chief of police in Altamont for many years. Robert Whipple lived on Maple Avenue until he was 8 years old, Ms. Degan said, when his family moved to the Whipple farm at the top of the Altamont Hill.
"He farmed with his grandfather and his Uncle Bob. They used horses back then," said Ms. Degan.

Sixteen years ago, while walking the land at High Point on top of the Helderbergs that he had farmed all his life, Mr. Whipple pointed to a ridge called Flat Rock, running the length of his property, remembering how he played there as a boy.
"I’d play cowboy," he said, "and pretend to ride my horse as fast as I could across these ridges — sometimes as far as Thacher Park."
He pointed to a place where he and his father had made haystacks with a stationary bailer and, near another field, he recalled, "I used my grandfather’s team thrashing oats there."

From an open place along the cliff’s edge, he pointed out the old Whipple homestead, far below but clearly visible along Route 156, where his grandfather used to live. Striding through a field, he picked up piles of dry hay, throwing them aside, to let the new hay grow underneath.
In the meadows, he pointed out shiny myrtle and berry-laden honeysuckle, and plucked a sweet wild raspberry to eat as he passed its brambly cane. "It’s a joy to even be here," he said. "Nature was so generous to this place."
"Daddy loved farming," his daughter said on Tuesday, the day of his funeral. "He loved being out on the land and having things grow. He was a very good farmer."
She went on, "Every single summer, when we came home, he would say, ‘Let me take you on a farm tour.’ " This year, the land he farmed, 260 acres, ran from Gallupville to Altamont, she said. "He grew the best-looking corn in the state of New York," she said.

Ms. Degan also said her father enjoyed hunting close to home and all across the country and into Canada. He was the proprietor of the Beaver Creek Lodge on Tug Hill.
Ms. Degan recounted how her father’s domain as a farmer grew. "He started on his own with a little Ford tractor," she said. "He plowed every victory garden in Altamont." Then, in 1952, he bought his own farm on the Knox-Gallupville Road.
"He loved what he did and he never stopped doing it," said Ms. Degan. Mr. Whipple farmed right up until he was hospitalized. "He was very good at it."
Ms. Degan recalled, when she was applying to the Ag School at Cornell, the interviewer, inquiring about her family’s dairy farm, asked what the farm’s herd average was, and she replied, 15,000 pounds. He said that would be "pretty unusual for a small herd," doubting her assertion. "We had only 33 cows," she said. The skeptical interviewer looked up the Whipples’ farm on the spot. "By golly, it was 15,300," Ms. Degan said. "Daddy had a gift."
She went on, "He had incredible enthusiasm. He was almost visionary, always looking ahead to the next thing."

Ms. Degan’s sister, Martha Durand, wrote a poem when she was in junior high school about picking sweet corn in the morning, not a job that his three children relished.
"Daddy would go at it like it was a party," said Ms. Degan. "The ground was muddy; the leaves were wet, you’d get sopping wet. And he’d say, ‘C’mon in, kids; the water’s fine.’ He had a joie de vivre."

At the urging of his children, Mr. Whipple, in his later years, wrote down vignettes from his boyhood in a book called A Gift of Heritage.
"He was a great story teller and we had been after him for years to write them down. So much has changed since he was a boy. He grew up in a house that didn’t have electricity or running water. I can even remember when the central heat went in. His grandfather farmed with a team of horses," said Ms. Degan. "The last thing he said to me — he couldn’t talk when he was in the hospital — was, ‘Make sure you get my book done.’"

The family will publish the memoir, she said.

Community service

Always active in town affairs, Mr. Whipple, a staunch Republican, was elected town judge in Knox, serving on the bench from 1968 to 1974.
Hammond, Knox’s long-time Democratic supervisor, said that Mr. Whipple, in his capacity as town judge, also served on the Knox Town Board. "Back then," Mr. Hammond said, having checked the town-board minutes for 1974, "town justices served as councilmen."
"It meant a lot to him to be elected, that people would entrust him," said Ms. Degan.

Mr. Whipple also served on a board that set up town zoning and, at the time of his death, he was on the Knox Board of Assessment Review.
"He provided the Board of Assessment Review with a wide spectrum of knowledge on agriculture and property evaluation," said Mr. Hammond.

In a town with nearly twice as many Democrats as Republicans, Mr. Whipple ran two solid races for the Albany County Legislature, going door-to-door to most the houses in the district.
"He was convinced the only way to campaign was to meet every voter in the district," said his daughter. Although those campaigns were unsuccessful, she said, "He liked meeting people. He enjoyed politics."
Mr. Whipple used his skills with people, selling insurance for Farm Family. Robert Giebitz wrote this week that, when he was recruiting agents to sell life insurance, he was impressed with Mr. Whipple’s enthusiasm but concerned his farming would conflict with selling. "It turned out that he sold more life insurance part-time than most of my agents did working full-time," said Mr. Giebitz.
Mr. Whipple combined his love of the land and his sales skills to become a real-estate broker and appraiser. Mr. Giebitz wrote this week of his friend, "When I moved to New Mexico, Bob sold my home in Berne. Bob knew I had financial problems and, when the sale was completed, he refused his commission."
Ms. Degan also said of her father, "He was very patriotic. He loved his country and his town. He wanted to see the town do better. He did that by getting involved.
"He worked hard for the Republican Party for many years. Daddy was friends with a lot of people on the other side of the ticket, too. He cared about making things better."
Gordon, the incumbent Democratic Albany County Legislator who bested Mr. Whipple in his two campaigns to represent the Hilltowns, said yesterday, "Bob was a very well-respected gentleman, known to be a leader in both agriculture and the Republican Party in the town of Knox and in the Hilltowns. Bob’s loss is a terrible loss...It’s a sad day for all of us."
Mr. Gordon went on about their closely-contested races for the legislature, "Bob was a gentleman to run against...Bob and I disagreed on a lot of issues; we saw things from different sides of the fence. But we respected each other’s opinions. He cared about the good of the people."
Mr. Whipple was also fond of going to alumni functions for Berne-Knox-Westerlo. He graduated from Berne-Knox High School in 1949. "He didn’t go to college," said Ms. Degan, although he later took courses in real estate and while serving as town judge. "He always went to Berne-Knox reunions and had many fond memories of going to school there."
The Whipple family is asking that memorial contributions be made to a BKW scholarship fund. "We wanted to leave a legacy that would make a difference in the community," said Ms. Degan. "The money will be used for kids going into vo-tec."
Mr. Whipple’s favorite high-school classes were shop and ag, she said. "That’s what he wanted to do. He was a rabid member of Future Farmers of America." His favorite teacher was his shop teacher and his best high-school event was the trip he took to the FFA convention in Kansas City, she said.
"Kids like that need support, too," said Ms. Degan. "They don’t get as much help as the kids who want to be teachers or doctors or lawyers."

Strong father
Mr. Whipple "was not the kind of father our husbands are now — changing diapers and giving bottles," said Ms. Degan. "He was a father who always seemed so strong to me. You felt safe knowing he was there."
She went on, "We spent a lot of time with him because he was a farmer. My mother’s favorite phrase was, ‘Go help your father.’"

And they did.
"From a very young age, we’d be on the tractor with him...I remember peddling sweet corn on the streets of Altamont when I was 6 years old," said Ms. Degan. Her father would drive his pickup, loaded with corn, through the village and she would run from porch to porch, delivering ears of corn.
"We learned by example, being with him," said Ms. Degan. Her brother, she said, was especially close to their father, working with him on the farm.
"He had a lot, lot, lot of good friends," Ms. Degan said of her father. "He worked hard and played hard. My husband calls him one of the last true romantics — he dreams big and makes it happen."

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Mr. Whipple was a member of the Farm Bureau, the New York State Outdoor Guides Association, the National Association of Real Estate Appraisers, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, and the New York State Maple Producers Association. He was a charter member of the Albany-Schoharie Plank Road Association, and a past member of the Knox Reformed Church and the Altamont Reformed Church. He was the president of the High Point Cemetery Association.

He is survived by his son, Brian A. Whipple and his wife, Kathy, of East Berne; two daughters, Deborah Degan and her husband, Mike, of Wilton, N.H. and Martha Durand and her husband, John, of Howell, N.J.; three stepsons, Charles Stewart, of Altamont, Daniel Stewart, of Delanson, and Thomas Stewart, of California; his fiancée, Frances Cornwell, of Gallupville; his brother, Henry Whipple and his wife, Pat, of Knox; 16 grandchildren; several great-grandchildren; numerous nieces, nephews, and cousins; and his business partner, Gillen Heitzman.

His wife, Anne M. (Coogan) Whipple, died before him as did his second wife, Theresa (Stewart) Whipple, and his sister, Ann Fullerton, of South Woodstock, Vt.

Funeral services were held on Tuesday at the Altamont Reformed Church. Arrangements are by the Fredendall Funeral Home of Altamont. Interment was at High Point Cemetery.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Berne-Knox-Westerlo Alumni Association for its scholarship fund, Post Office Box 4, Berne, NY 12023, or to the Helderberg Ambulance Squad, Post Office Box 54, East Berne, NY 12059.