After graduating from high school in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Robert alspaugh attended the Univesity of Tula and then graduated from Northeastern Oiklahoma A&M College and Northwestn University. During World War I he served in France as a staff sergeant in the Army Medical Corps.He received a Bachelor of Divinity from Garrett Biblical Institue in 1932. As a member of the Erast Oklahoma Conference of the Methodist Church, he served many pastorates in Oklahoma and was a member of the International Council of Religious Education. During World War II, after completing the Chaplain School at Harvard Univesity, he was commissioned in the Army Chaplain’s Corps, and went overseas in August 1943. He was killed in action in Italy on January 16, 1944.