WINONA LAKE - They say "the sun never sets on the Salvation Army flag."

Anita Robb probably considers that as she watches night fall over the waters of Winona Lake from her home on the east shore.

Robb, 94, received the Salvation Army's most distinguished award Friday - the Order of the Founder medallion - in the Army's office on Arthur Street in Warsaw.

She and her husband, Loyd, served in the Army for 47 years. They retired as colonels.

The Order of the Founder isn't handed out by the Salvation Army willy-nilly. Only 210 have been presented since 1917 (see separate story).

Robb was honored for her pioneering social work in the Army's Central Territory, headquartered in Chicago since 1913.

"This is just beyond my comprehension," Robb said of the honor recently at her Lake Shore Drive home.

"Social work. A lot of it (was applying) Band-Aids," she said of those early years - the 1920s and '30s. "We did not have professional people. A lot of agencies didn't have professional people, not like today."

She was one of the first professionals, a graduate of The Ohio State University in 1930 with a master's degree in social work.

At that time only 13 colleges in the country offered such degrees.

She spent two years working in Toledo, Ohio, and two in Chicago before entering the Salvation Army's School for Officer Training in the windy city.

"Mother was the one who influenced us," she said of her rare accomplishment. "I have another sister who graduated from college, too."

She was determined to serve in the Army, a profession her father did not encourage. Anita was born in West Virginia, the daughter of the late Brigadier Brice Leroy and Mabel Gale Phillipson. They were Salvationists for 47 years and retired in Winona Lake, too.

It wasn't that Brigadier Phillipson didn't want a daughter in the Army; he didn't think she had seen enough of the world.

The world came to her soon enough in Chicago, where the main ambition of young boys was to be gangsters.

"I tell you, we had some hairy experiences," she said. "One woman, a fat and toothless woman, made all of those boys empty out their pockets and put their guns and knives in a desk drawer before they came in."

Loyd ran the one of the Army's settlement houses in Chicago where the staff lived. The house offered medical and dental clinics. For children there was a game room after school and day care.

Prior to 1934 churches and clubs received money from the community chest, she said.

After 1934 the federal goverment developed a social welfare program, administered by the states. On the local level, if organizations did not have a professional staff, they became ineligible for community money.

"Social workers didn't have a very good name. We had to get people in sympathy with our philosophy. Too many times it was about politics and not people," she said.

And the Army's philosophy is to help everyone regardless of who they are.

"Take people for what they are," she said. "Don't give advice but give them an opportunity to make their own decisions about themselves."

They raised two sons, Allan, of Winona Lake, and Phillip, of Ohio. Neither followed their parents into the Army.

Allan is a retired professor of medieval English. Phillip is head of the Kent State University Theater Department.

"Can I just interject here?" asked Lloyd, Anita's husband of 65 years, from across the room.

Loyd was born in Guthrie, Okla., to Harrison Garfield and Nellie Moore Robb. They were Army officers, too.

Anita and Loyd met at the Army's church in Chicago and were married in 1936.

His wife looked at him expectantly, indicating he could proceed.

"She has been a national influence. She began to get people to head up various programs," he said.

"Oh, Loyd," Anita said, waving a hand to get him to stop boasting about her.

Loyd continued.

"Officially she was confined to the central territory but she was the only professional (in the Army) they could look to. She was on every committee and guided them," he said.

With a sigh, since he mentioned it, Anita admitted she was the chairman of the Illinois commission to set day care standards and licensing and participated in the National Conference of Social Workers, sometimes as the chairman, other times just as a member "for years and years and years."

She also served on the National Commission of Social Services.

"When the Army gets going on something, it gets going," she said. "Look at how the day care, senior citizens and after-school programs have all blossomed. Chicago has tremendous social program now."

The Robbs served the Army's Central Territory, in Iowa, Wisconsin, and Kansas.

In Iowa Anita was a member of that state's Commission for Services to the Aging.

Returning to Chicago for 17 years before they retired in 1978, Anita taught classes in the Army's School for Officer Training, a two-year program.

In the Army Loyd was a secretary of the corporation in addition to running a settlement house.

"He's a good preacher, too," Anita said.

Loyd had to top that compliment with another of his own.

While attending the International Congress in Atlanta, Ga., recently, Anita rode in a wheelchair while Loyd pushed.

"Young people would spot her from the end of the hallway and come running up to her, to hug her, to talk to her," he said.

"It showed me what an influence she had outside my knowledge. She influenced many people."

Loyd said his wife has mentored many in the Army's upper echelons.

"There were others who were trained up for social work and got snitched for other jobs, too," Anita said.

"What you have done is not all 'up-front' things," her husband said. "A lot was behind the scenes. You have really made a contribution."

Anita had enough of this boastfulness.

"Oh Loyd, you're not being interviewed," she said to make him quit.

He won't quit though. He's proud of her, and her accomplishments are now recognized with the Army's highest order of merit.

And it's a comfort to know the sun will never set on the flag she's saluted for so long. [[In-content Ad]]