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Swimming champion, longtime Santa dies
By CRAIG BASSE, Times Obituaries Editor INDIAN ROCKS BEACH -- His resume lists him as a former swimming champion and expert on first aid for the American Red Cross. His name is mentioned in the same breath with Weeki Wachee mermaids. He taught countless kids how to stay safe in the water. But each year for a half century, Robert Zubrod at Christmas turned himself into someone else. He played Santa Claus. Mr. Zubrod, who died Wednesday (April 10, 2002) at 95 at Palm Garden of Largo, began playing the role for Christmas 1936. As each year passed, he continued the tradition, improving his costume several times. In the early 1940s, he added magic tricks. In 1987, he announced a huge change for Christmas. He decided to just stay home. At the age of 80, he declared it time to hand over his red and white suit to a young relative. It wasn't easy to surrender the part he played. He especially missed visiting nursing homes and sick children, he said. "Elderly people (in nursing homes) sometimes don't see anybody," he said. An older woman, he said, once told him as he appeared before her as Santa that he was the first adult besides doctors she had seen for some time. "I went back to visit her next day as a civilian," he said. He also visited some "third generation" children, whose mother and grandmother he had visited as Santa in years past, he said. Mr. Zubrod, who came here in 1942 from his native Johnstown, Pa., joined the National Red Cross field staff in 1935. He earlier spent 15 years as a volunteer in Red Cross first aid and water safety while he was employed by the YMCA in Pennsylvania. In 1932, he qualified for the U.S. Olympic swim team, only to be disqualified because he had been paid as a YMCA lifeguard, he said. At age 13 he started competitive swimming and went on to win a silver cup as national 100-yard breast stroke champion. Between 1923 and 1931 he won 143 medals and 27 trophies in swim meets in the Northeast. Later in life, he helped train Weeki Wachee mermaids and doubled for actor William Powell in the movie Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid in 1949. Survivors include four daughters, Dorothy Landers, St. Petersburg, Georgia Roberts, Dunnellon, Bette Holloway, Gainesville, and Judy Favere, Seminole; and a brother, Lorraine Zubrod, Bedford, Pa. National Cremation Society, Clearwater, is in charge. -- Information from Times files was used in this obituary.
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