Robert A. Newell was born on a ranch on Tongue River, near Sheridan, Wyoming, on March 28, 1890. When about eight years of age the family moved to Thermopolis, Wyoming, where he attended school. As he grew older he assisted his father who was freighting from Thermopolis to Bridger, Montana. The family later moved into the Prayer Mountains near Bridger, where his mother died in the year 1902. Robert went to live with an aunt while attending school, later taking up work in the coal mines. In the year 1908 his father and other children moved to Spring Hill, Robert going there and making his livelihood by working on the ranches around Spring Hill until he took up a homestead. He was married in 1914 to Miss Hattie M. Newell, a distant cousin, of Mitchell, Nebraska.

Robert had a sunny disposition which won him friends both at home and in the army. He enlisted July 23, 1918, from Austin, Lander County, Nevada, where he had made his home. He was assigned to Casual Detachment Medical Officers Training Camp, Fort Riley, Kansas, and was with this outfit until September 8, 1918, when he was transferred to Medical Department, Ft. Snelling, Minnesota. This was during the time that the Spanish Influenza was sweeping the Country, and Robert A. Newell fell a victim of Influenza and broncho pneumonia, answering the final call on October 15, 1918. His body was taken to Spring Hill and there placed in its final resting place.

The noble soldier is survived by a wife, Mrs. Hattie May Newell, Spring Hill, Wyoming, and a son, John Robert; his father, Gus Newell, Upton, Wyoming; Sisters, Mrs. Ruby Spracklen of Spring Hill; Mrs. Dorothy Hoosier of Fortuna, California, and Mrs. Nellie Hammon of Labonte, Wyoming; and a brother, Clarence Newell.