[1] Robert E. Olds was born in Duluth, Minnesota, on October 22, 1875.

[2] He served as the Commissioner of the American Red Cross in Europe, from 1919 to 1921 during the war[3] and as a United States member of the League of Nations tribunals and commissions.

[4] On 17 June 1925, he was appointed as Assistant Secretary of State by President Calvin Coolidge.

He was appointed as a member of the permanent court of arbitration at the Hague in 1931.

[8] He died suddenly on November 25, 1932, in Paris, where he was a member of the council of the International Chamber of Commerce, due to a cerebral hemorrhage.