J. Arthur Robinson was a co-founder and one of the owners of Robinson-Lytle Funeral Home. The son of funeral director James W. and his wife E. Blanche Stewart Robinson, he was born in Saltsburg on July 21, 1897. Robinson received his early education in the Saltsburg Public Schools and graduated from Kiskiminetas Springs School, Saltsburg, and, later, from Eckel’s College of Embalming in Philadelphia. In 1928, Robinson became a co-owner and a partner with his father, James W. Robinson, who had founded the Robinson Funeral Home in Saltsburg in 1891. J. Arthur Robinson and his brother, Harold T. Robinson, established the Robinson Funeral Home in Indiana in 1929. This enterprise became the Robinson-Lytle Funeral Home in 1955. Robinson maintained long-standing professional memberships in both the Pennsylvania and National Funeral Directors Associations. He was also a member of the National Selected Morticians.
For many years, Robinson was active in Masonic endeavors in Indiana, Saltsburg, and Pittsburgh. He was a member of the Odd Fellows, the Elks, the UCT, the Woodmen of the World and the Kiwanis Club of Indiana. He was a member of the Calvary United Presbyterian Church of Indiana where he served as a ruling elder for many years and as a trustee. A veteran of World War I, he was a member of the Richard W. Watson American Legion Post No. 141 of Indiana. For many years, Robinson served as a director on the board of the Savings and Trust Co. of Pennsylvania. J. Arthur Robinson died at 82 in Indiana on January 27, 1980. His wife, Elizabeth Ewing Robinson, had predeceased him.