Robert Van Pelt

Robert Van Pelt (September 9, 1897 – April 27, 1988) was a Nebraska 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, and, at the suggestion of the county treasurer, began to write hail insurance to fund his post-secondary education.