As a cadet and later a ship's officer in the merchant marine, Rob Lewis served on vessels that crisscrossed the Mediterranean Sea. At various ports he would go ashore and visit museums, archaeological digs and ruins.

Although he never completed college, his travels took him to the ruins of Carthage, and shops and bazaars in Greece, Malta, Turkey, Italy, Egypt and Lebanon.

Rob spent a good portion of his small salary buying ancient coins and artifacts. He kept a very precise record of each acquisition.

When he came home from the sea and ran the hardware store, he packed his collection away in cardboard boxes.

Years later, a professor of early Christianity at Brown University, Stanley K. Stowers, paid a visit to Kay Lewis, Keith's wife, on the island. She invited him to have a look at Rob's collection of 2,665 coins and 53 artifacts, which had been valued at $47,425.

Stowers was so impressed that he invited Rob to donate the collection to Brown. In 1990, Brown held a dedication ceremony, which greatly pleased Rob. He said that with his meager education, he never dreamed he would be addressing the world of "academe."

Keith said his father gave a speech that described his life in the merchant marine and the opportunities it provided him to study the world's civilizations and the evolutions of history.

As reported by Keith, Rob said in part, "I have often lamented the fact that man, in his vanity and savagery, has destroyed so much of his own history, when we could have learned so much from the so-called savage and primitive cultures such as the Indians of the Americas and the peoples of the tropical Pacific, to broadly name just a couple."

Prof. Rudolf M. Winkes, who continues to use the coins for teaching, said that what is remarkable about the collection is that the rate of authenticity is so high. Most of the coins are Roman silver coins, dating between the first and third centuries. There is also a complete collection of coins from Malta.

Winkes said he once asked Rob how he was so successful in picking good coins.

"He said if you are a captain of sailors, you get a good feeling of what people are about. He had that intuitive kind of feeling about people.

"He was a very unusual person," Winkes said. "He was so generous. We made a little celebration for him, and he was so pleased. But so humble."