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On another page to follow, Robert C. Greenlease, will be honored along with his wife Virginia P. Greenlease, for their most generous and continuing support, (and ever since Robert and Virginia passed away, and across these many years), for Rockhurst University and Rockhurst High School, both Roman Catholic and Jesuit schools in Kansas City, Missouri.
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Robert was a stylish man and his dress was impeccable. He wore his men’s fedora’s (hats) that always matched his dapper suits that were tailor-made coming from the Bond Clothing Company in downtown Kansas City, Missouri. He always sported a new luxury Cadillac; why wouldn’t he? He was one of the first really successful Cadillac dealerships in America. Perhaps his favorite Cadillac color was light blue as he often enjoyed a current model, often
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blue. Robert was one of those most oft-admired American “self-made” men. He was strong in will and firm in his beliefs. He was a conservative and supported the Republican Party and was a close personal friend to President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
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As Greenlease Cadillac Motor Company prospered, so did the fact and the knowledge of the vast Greenlease wealth. And it was this notion of their wealth that caught in the minds of the two notorious and ill-reputed alcoholics who perpetrated the evil deeds against Robert and Virginia, and their entire family, on the morning of September 28, 1953, when the two murderous drunken scoundrels kidnapped and then cold-bloodily murdered six year-old Bobby Greenlease. The irony of their wealth is that this vast wealth provided the means and funding for all of the wonderful philanthropy and charity Robert and Virginia would initiate in the years following the tragic loss of their little Bobby.
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So much has been spoken, written, and recorded, and all covering this horrible and dastardly event, and this site shall not review more of the details of this tragedy again at this time. This was a terrible nightmare to have endured, and to have lived through, and in real-time, as did the entire family. There are entire FBI and police files, as well as many other graphic, if not sordid, retellings of the 1953 Bobby Greenlease kidnapping, murder, and the huge $6000,000.00 ransom (still, the largest ever paid in the USA), by the Greenlease Family in their futile attempt to save Bobby from these two cowardly murderers.
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Today, on the site of the former Greenlease Cadillac Company, the actual original building has been converted into luxurious and elegant and highly priced private condominiums known as the Greenlease Cadillac Condominiums. This area has become quite trendy and adjoins the Union Hill redevelopment region of the city just south of Hallmark Cards. The exterior remains the same with the original Cadillac showroom intact and now serving as a large workout exercise room. In 1970 Greenlease Cadillac sold to F. Lee Major and became known as Major Cadillac. In 1975 the dealership moved from the original location on Gillham Road to 3200 Main Street. In 2007 Major Cadillac sold to Scott and Stuart Conklin and Joe Fangman and became known today as Conklin-Fangman Cadillac. The dealership is still located and has been greatly expanded at the Main Street location in Kansas City, Missouri.
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No one ever expected that such a tragedy could ever befall any family. And while the sad events surrounding the passing of Robert C. “Bobby” Greenlease, Jr. became so ingrained in the hearts and minds of so many people, both nationally and worldwide, and outside of the Greenlease Family, still, the family had to do things like making funeral arrangements and planning for the place where their beloved little Bobby would finally be put to rest; things most people encounter at some points in their lives.
So much attention began to focus on the entire Greenlease Family and the details of the tragedy began to unfold twice daily in The Kansas City Times and The Kansas City Star. (At that time there were two editions of the newspaper delivered in the Kansas City area, morning and evening editions).
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Most people locally were anxious to receive their twice daily newspapers to be informed of the latest developments of the unfolding tragedy and all of the intimate details of the Greenleases. These intimate details surrounding this tragedy also dominated the local and national airwaves.
John Cameron Swayze, the popular NBC-TV national newsman, even came to Kansas City from New York immediately following the kidnapping, and broadcast live for several evenings his daily national news program from outside the Greenlease residence on Verona Road in Mission Hills, Kansas. The national public was really interested in each of the unfolding events, and especially during those first few days and weeks after Bobby was kidnapped from his school. People simply wanted all of the details. In fact, Bobby seemed so entrenched in the hearts and minds of people that he became “everyone’s little boy!” People were so moved with deep empathy, and finally sympathy, for the entire Greenlease Family, and perhaps even more intensely once the news of Bobby’s passing was revealed.
People were trying to make comparisons between Bobby’s tragedy and the earlier tragedy surrounding the kidnapping and murder of Charles Augustus Lindbergh, Jr. that had occurred on March 1, 1932. While both events were so very sad and so very tragic, the respective families of both children were naturally so completely overcome with grief, and to the extent that any comparisons made between the two kidnappings were left solely to others, not so personally involved. In both instances, small children were the targets of the kidnappers. People of good will, both then and now, will never understand and will never accept any of the presumed motives that were finally put forth and established in the end in the courts, by these kinds of demented psychopathic child murderers. Bobby’s killers were completely disassociated with the reality of his very Humanity!
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