His Name is Bob
The true story of a savant who survived his own personal holocaust

Bob recounts life at the state school

Official medical documents declare that Bob is mildly retarded due to head trauma he suffered when he fell out of a highchair at age 1. Family Pastor David Wells of Nashua, New Hampshire, recounts family reports of his mother whacking him in the head with a frying pan. Or there is the story about the car accident that killed his biological father in 1955. Bob, age 3 at the time, might have been along for that fatal ride. Metal plates were put in his head and later removed, and Bob has a v-shaped scar above his right ear as a lasting reminder of the violence that maimed him.

Bob is not afraid of people. But he should be.

"He came into the world a beautiful baby but was maltreated from the start," his paternal grandmother wrote in a letter. "During the first year of his life, he suffered many injuries all due to neglect."

Neglect and abuse. His mother locked him in closets; tied him up and threw him in a tub of bleach water to sleep because he wet his bed. And then she dumped him at Laconia State School for the Feeble-Minded at age 8. She never returned to see him again.

"My mother I really never got to know - other than her tying me up in a bathtub, my hands tied behind my back," Bob says.

Bob is slow. But among the idiosyncrasies that characterize him is this idiot savant behavior that includes a knack for remembering phone numbers and names from 30 years ago; an ability to quote scripture he first learned as a child; and something of a musical talent with his portable keyboard that includes a repertoire of songs ranging from "You Are My Sunshine" to "Amazing Grace." It was the darkest time of Bob's childhood that he found this gift of music, learning to play under the guidance of a janitor at Laconia State School. ―From hisnameisbob.com