Robert Van Pelt

Robert Van Pelt (September 9, 1897 – April 27, 1988) was an American attorney and served as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Nebraska.

Early life and career

Born in Gosper County, Nebraska, and raised in Stockville, Van Pelt was early exposed to lawyers and judges through the boarding house his mother operated in the county seat of Frontier County. Only having ten grades in Stockville, Van Pelt proceeded to the Franklin Academy in Franklin, Nebraska, a school affiliated with the Congregational Church.

He spent two years away from his own formal education after Franklin Academy. During this time he became a school teacher at a one-room schoolhouse just north of Stockville, Deputy County Treasurer of Frontier County,

While still a student, purchasing forms for a mortgage course, he encountered a former Southwest Nebraska district judge whom he recognized from his boyhood in Stockville, Judge E.B. Perry, and was offered an internship at Stewart, Perry, Stewart in Lincoln. until Van Pelt and Marti left this firm to form the new partnership of Van Pelt, Marti, and O'Gara. and Van Pelt served as Deputy United States Attorney for the District of Nebraska from 1930 to 1934. Member of the Lincoln Board of Education Member of the Doane College Board of Trustees Member Board of Directors, Lincoln Chamber of Commerce Member United States Junior Chamber of Commerce Republican National Convention Delegate in 1940, 1944, and 1948