Warner Robins' grandchildren make first visit to the city

WARNER ROBINS — For years they had heard all about the Georgia city named for their grandfather, but they'd never made time to visit.

That all changed Monday when three of Brig. Gen. Augustine Warner Robins' grandchildren got a look at the International City and Robins Air Force Base.

Anne Guilfoyle Charlton, 72, Jane Guilfoyle Ward, 69, and Frank J. Guilfoyle, 64, traveled from San Antonio, Texas, to see the place they'd only known about from their grandmother, Dorothy Hyde Robins.

The city was named after their grandfather in 1943, three years after his death.

His aide, Charles E. Thomas, had urged town leaders, including then-Wellston Mayor Boss Watson, to approve the renaming. The Wellston Air Depot was also renamed the Warner Robins Army Air Depot in time.

Early Monday morning, his three grandchildren shook hands with Mayor Randy Toms and Col. Jeffrey R. King, installation and 78th Air Base Wing commander, in the Museum of Aviation's Eagle Building.

"Other than it being so difficult to come, why (visit) now?" Toms, a lifelong resident, asked them.

"I think the fact that there weren't really people we knew here, it was just a place," Charlton said. "But once we decided to come, it really was like, 'Yeah, why didn't we do this sooner?' ... but we're here now and we're impressed. It's big. It's beautiful."

Charlton and her siblings are the children of Helen Robins Guilfoyle, Robins' youngest daughter.

Robins, who was born in Virginia, died of a heart attack in 1940 at age 57. He never met his grandchildren, though their grandmother spoke often of him until she died in 1993. The couple is buried in Arlington National Cemetery near the grave of the Unknown Soldier, Charlton said.

"My grandmother never remarried," Charlton said. "He was the one love of her life. ... She always talked about Warner."

Charlton said Robins spent a lot of time at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio. He was in the Army Air Corps, the aviation arm of the military before the U.S. Air Force. He was also a 1907 graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.

"He was friends with Orville Wright. He was friends with Charles Lindbergh. All the early flight people, he was friends with them," Charlton said of Robins. "He was a golfer. He loved golf."

Guilfoyle, who lives in Houston, said he was glad to finally be able to visit the town bearing his grandfather's name.

"What amazes me most about him is when he started in the Army they were on horseback, and when he finished they were flying planes in World War II."

Ward, who recalled her grandmother calling Robins "a jokester," said the city had so far exceeded her expectations.

"It's more impressive than I expected," Ward said. "I'm so glad we came. ... I don't know why we just didn't. We kept thinking one of these days we're going to go see it. Now, when I get here, I'm thinking, 'Why haven't we?'"

Before touring the museum and the base, Toms presented the siblings and their spouses with a box holding a golden key.

"I just want to give this to y'all as a family," the mayor said. "This seems kind of funny to give a key to the city of Warner Robins to the family of Warner Robins, but it is my honor, ... and we thank you so much for allowing us to be Warner Robins, Georgia."

Toms said he was honored to meet descendants of Robins.

"This city really was supposed to be here for a little while and then fade away," he said. "But it just held on and then they named it after somebody like this. That's pretty cool."

To contact writer Laura Corley, call 744-4334 or follow her on Twitter @Lauraecor.

This story was originally published October 26, 2015 at 6:22 PM with the headline "Warner Robins' grandchildren make first visit to the city ."