Robert Filosa, retired Marine

Robert W. Filosa, 87, of Hatboro, a retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel and bank operations vice president, died of heart failure Friday at Abington Memorial Hospital.

Mr. Filosa grew up in South Philadelphia and attended St. Thomas Aquinas School, where his future wife, Barbara Shellem, was a classmate. He graduated from La Salle College High School and attended La Salle University for a year before enlisting in the Marine Corps in 1940.

During World War II, he served in the Pacific and was in the first wave of Marines to land at Guadalcanal. During the Korean War, he served in a Marine Air Wing in Korea. From 1968 to 1969, during the Vietnam War, he was with a Marine amphibious force in Da Nang. He also served in Okinawa, Japan, in the early 1960s.

Between overseas assignments, Mr. Filosa was stationed in Washington, and in the Philadelphia area at the Naval Shipyard, at the Willow Grove Naval Air Station, and the Marine Reserve District Headquarters.

One of his most difficult assignments, his son Eugene said, was when he was among the officers who notified families of the deaths of Marines killed in Vietnam.

After retiring from the Marine Corps in 1984, Mr. Filosa was security director for Fidelity Bank in Philadelphia. He retired from Fidelity in 1984 as vice president for operations.

Mr. Filosa enjoyed hosting family celebrations at his home and traveling throughout the United States and Europe with his wife. She died in 1996. The couple were married for 49 years and raised nine children.

A lifelong Philadelphia sports fan, Mr. Filosa took particular pleasure in last year's Phillies World Series win.

For more than 50 years, he was a member of St. John Bosco Roman Catholic Church in Hatboro, where he was an usher, lector, and eucharistic minister. He ran the annual parish carnival and was a fixture at every fund-raising event, his son said.

In addition to his son, Mr. Filosa is survived by daughters Barbara Grant, Lorena Boylan, Anita Gawel, Marianna Gawel and Andrea; sons Robert Jr., Michael, and Paul; a brother; 12 grandchildren; and a great-grandson.

A Funeral Mass will be said at 11 a.m. today at St. John Bosco Church, 235 E. County Line Rd., Hatboro, Pa. 19040. Friends may call from 10 a.m. Burial will be in St. John Neumann Cemetery, Chalfont.

Memorial donations may be made to the church.