From the farm to the dinner table, Bob O'Gorman knew food.

O'Gorman grew up on a farm, sold farm machinery after serving in the Army and then ran several Red Owl grocery stores in the southern Twin Cities and points south.

He also made a name for himself as a tenor in the Mel-O-Dons barbershop quartet.

He died Saturday at his Cannon Falls home after a long battle with cancer. He was 85.

"My whole life has been the food business," O'Gorman said upon induction in 1996 into the Hall of Fame of the Minnesota Grocers Association. "I grew it, sold the machinery necessary to cultivate or harvest it, and sold it. My 35 years in grocery retailing was a great experience."

In late 1960, O'Gorman and his wife, Laurie, opened and operated Bob's Red Owl in Cannon Falls. They used the business to provide their seven children with employment and instill a strong work ethic.

Tim O'Gorman started right away for his father, when the Cannon Falls store opened. "I was 5," he said Wednesday. "I burned boxes, put eggs from bulk into dozen cartons ... all sorts of things."

The O'Gormans also ran Red Owls in Hastings, Fairmont, Farmington, Rosemount, Plainview and Zumbrota.

Bob O'Gorman was born in Red Wing and raised on a farm in Belle Creek. He served in the Army during World War II and married Laurie in 1946. A year later, he began a long stint selling John Deere farm machinery in southeastern Minnesota.

Pat Anderson, president of the Cannon Falls Chamber of Commerce, started working for O'Gorman at the local Red Owl in the early 1970s and remembered him as a "good, tough employer who really taught you how to work and how to serve customers."

She said he succeeded because of "a keen sense of people and what people wanted."

O'Gorman's love of singing far outlasted his time in the food business. He was a 57-year member of the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barbershop Quartet Singing in America Inc., more conveniently known as the Barbershop Harmony Society.

With the Mel-O-Dons, he competed in Winnipeg and was among a few dozen groups that made it to an international showdown in 1960 in Texas. The Mel-O-Dons also collaborated on a recording presented by the Minneapolis Commodore Chorus.

"His buddies would stop in the [Cannon Falls] store when we were working," Tim O'Gorman recalled, "and they'd crank it up in the back room, and the customers would stop in the aisle."

Along with his wife of 66 years and son Tim, O'Gorman is survived by children, Joe of Zumbrota, Pat of Cottage Grove, Mark of Eagan, Babe of Cannon Falls, and Mary of Cannon Falls. He is preceded in death by son Dan.

Services are scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Thursday at St. Pius V Catholic Church, 410 Colvill St. W., Cannon Falls, with visitation one hour prior. Interment with military honors follows at the church cemetery.

Paul Walsh • 612-673-4482