Robert Benton Mcknight Jr.

Robert Benton McKnight, Jr. passed away on February 1 peacefully at his home. He was surrounded during the last week of his life with the love and attention of family members, close friends and his dear sweet Tennie.

Bob was born on April 24, 1930 in Jackson, Mississippi to stylish but nervous parents, Robert Sr. and Edwina Blanks. His fraternal grandmother, Della Gillis McKnight, stood guard.

As a boy he had an alter ego via a hand-sewn cape and was known as The Red Dot, who he claimed to have saved many women.

Bobby grew up with vivid images from The Great Depression and carried with him spectors of unexpressed potential and broken dreams. On the other hand, a multitude of moves while growing up resulted in countless rich experiences, which would be written on his future.

Elementary school was completed in Vicksburg, Mississippi and Little Rock, Arkansas was the backdrop of his junior high days. In the end, Robert Sr. located the family in Tupelo, Mississippi where he established an architecture firm and the hard won permanency that he long sought for his family.

Bobby thrived at Tupelo High School where he played football and made many life-long friends.

Upon graduation, he took his father’s advice and went to Mississippi State University, a poor match for his personality. With a sensitive and artistic nature, he miscalculated and settled on a major in agriculture.

After graduation, he married Mary Ann Griffith from Yazoo City, Mississippi. He launched their new life together in service to the United States Army as a captain. After his discharge, he returned to Tupelo and worked as a foreman for a shirt manufacturer and then as a draftsman in his father’s firm.

He carried sensibilities from both experiences into a lifelong appreciation for a finely cut coat and a well designed home.

Bob was diversely creative and drafting construction plans gave him his first real opportunity to express hidden talents. While working for his father, he was responsible for completing plans for 10 residences, several schools, businesses and churches in north Mississippi, all of which he proudly toured during his later years.

In 1964 Bob, Mary Ann, his daughter, Roben, and his son, Ben, moved to Nashville, Tennessee where Bob began a long and successful career in the wholesale lumber business, a work that was marked by thousands of miles on the road making calls on individual lumber yards and their owners.

He was a family hobbyist and steadfastly nurtured his children.

One Sunday Bob ushered his young family down the road to Columbia, a town of beauty that he believed paralleled his youthful universe.

He designed and built a home on the Bigby Creek in a new development called Sunnyside, a source of pleasure for many years. After a protracted start as an employee for large sales companies, he hung out his own shingle, Robert B. McKnight, Jr., Lumber Wholesaler.

Later he began to build creative and affordable houses, all of which can be seen in Columbia today.

Bearing the heart of an entrepreneur, Bob shouldered the consequences of mounting dreams and the unforeseen recession of the 1970s. He was confronted with the challenges of a changing lumber market that he labored to overcome. Though the rules of the game changed, his ideals survived.

He turned his attention to writing family stories and poetry and to the genealogy research of the Blanks, Cater and McKnight families. As a family archivist, he was prone to document even the most whimsical detail for future recall.

Bob was a mentor and friend to many young people. He was known for his twinkling eyes, his sense of humor and his willingness to tell the truth.

Mary Ann died unexpectedly in 1990, leaving Bob without his longtime companion of 38 years.

In 1996, Bob married Tennie Wilson to whom he was devoted for the next seventeen years until his death. In his retirement, he continued his role as a guide becoming a second father to her daughters, Kristy and Kasey, and a solid presence to his 4 grandchildren and Tennie’s 4 grandchildren. He delighted in exchanges with 2 great granddaughters.

Bob enriched the lives of his families with his quick wit, generosity of spirit and willingness to engage with an encouraging word or helping hand.

In his later years, Bob had many health issues that prevented him from connecting with others as the bright spirit who could once fearlessly inspire, but those who knew him will never forget his beautiful smile and easy laugh, firm handshake and willingness to talk anyone out of their box.

Stories of Bob will long be recounted by his loving wife, Tennie, his children, Roben Mounger (Dalton) and Ben McKnight (Emily), his grandchildren, Mary Ann Weprin (Ben), Quinn Kellum (Bradley), Joe McKnight (Lucia), and Louise McKnight, great grandchildren, Elodie and Dalton Weprin, Tennie’s children, Kristy Wilson and Kasey Cross (Barry), Tennie’s grandchildren, Brett Wilson, Rachel, Kate and Sarah Grace Cross, long time best friend, Piggie Caldwell, and too many other friends to mention from his days in Jackson, Vicksburg, Little Rock, Tupelo and Columbia, all of whom he kept up with until his death. Love abounds.

A memorial visitation will be on Sunday, February 3 from 2:00 to 4:00 p.m. at the First Presbyterian Church in Columbia, Tennessee.

Memorials may be made to Maury County Habitat For Humanity, 813 South Garden, Columbia, Tennessee or The Columbia Neuropathy Research Center, 710 West 168th Street, New York, New York 10032.

Williams Funeral Home is assisting the family with the arrangements. Online condolences may be made at www.williamsfh.com