Randall Robison

Randall Mark “Randy” Robison was a 12-year-old boy who grew up in Lathrup Village, Michigan, and spent cherished summers with his family at their lakefront cottage near Good Hart. Public accounts identify him as the third of four children in the Robison household: Richard Jr., Gary, Randy, and young Susan. At the time of his death he was a middle-school student and, like many children who spent holidays “Up North,” he was part of a close-knit family rhythm of lake days, woods, and the small-community life of Blisswood near Good Hart.

Contemporary press and later retrospectives describe the Robisons as a family rooted in suburban Detroit life who treasured their seasonal retreats on the shores of Lake Michigan. The Robison cottage was a place where the family gathered each summer; those seasonal traditions are the clearest public detail about Randy’s daily life that sources preserve. Reports of the time note the family’s ties to Lathrup Village and the different stages of the children’s lives — a college student, a high-schooler, a middle-schooler (Randy), and a young elementary school child — which help convey the ordinary, human pattern of a family that loved being together.

Because public records and news accounts focus primarily on the tragic loss the Robison family suffered in June 1968, many personal details about Randy’s interests, friends, or school life remain private in surviving sources. What is clear from reliable reporting is that Randy was a real child in the middle of his childhood — part of a loving family and a community — whose life was cut short far earlier than anyone could have imagined. Remembering Randy means acknowledging that he was more than a date or a headline: he was a son and a brother whose presence was woven into family summers and everyday routines that mattered deeply to those who loved him.

This page honors Randall Mark Robison by centering the simple facts of his life and family bonds. While public records offer only fragments, those fragments point to a young life lived within a warm family pattern and a community that still recalls the Robisons’ long summers Up North. His memory endures in the lives of those who knew him and in historical accounts that preserve his name with care.