Mourns Atlantic Highlands Mayor Lori Hohenleitner announced the death of former Mayor Robert Schoeffling yesterday, sending heartfelt wishes to his family and to all borough residents who remembered, loved and respected the former Mayor.
Schoeffling, who was born in 1935, was featured in To Preserve and Protect, a book of profiles of Monmouth County writers who recorded the history and heritage of Monmouth County. The book was published by the Office of the County Clerk and written by County Clerk Christine Giordano Hanlon and Rick Gefffken. The book was written six years ago.
The Chapter on Mayor Bob follows:
Bob Schoeffling is a man fiercely devoted to his Atlantic Highlands hometown. This unique contributor to Monmouth County history has been a councilman, mayor, borough historian, rare and out-of-print bookstore owner and collector of anything and everything connected to this small but important Bayshore community.
The dining and living rooms of his house feature floor-to-ceiling bookshelves of the many published works he has bought at flea markets, estate sales, other bookshops, and from private collectors. His library consists of over 1,700 hardcover books, the vast majority about New Jersey history.
More than a few of these are one-of-a-kind, long out-of- print works relating to Atlantic Highlands and the vicinity. Remarkably, when you engage in a conversation about a historical topic with Bob, he will jump up and find an exact reference to what you are discussing among his hundreds of books. Some of which he has not opened in years. One of these, is, astoundingly, Poems on Several Occasions, written and autographed in 1795 by Philip Freneau, the American Revolutionary War poet of considerable fame from Matawan. It might be the only one.
Bob grew up in the Port Monmouth section of Middletown, went to Leonardo schools and took some courses at Monmouth College before starting his working life at Jersey Central Power & Light Company. He met his late wife, Ruth, when he was the business manager at the utility’s Long Branch office. Bob and Ruth moved to Atlantic Highlands in the 1960s.
Bob was elected the Republican mayor of Atlantic Highlands for consecutive terms, serving from 1988 to 1999. He is justly proud of his accomplishments as a public servant. “I brought ferry service to town- Sea Streak. I worked seven years getting the Portland Pointe Senior Citizen building” because he says, “the building was vital since the town had the third-highest number of seniors in Monmouth County without senior housing back then.”
He was able to secure a $4.5 million grant from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) “one of only two towns east of the Mississippi to get money,” he says, adding, “God used me as a tool to make that happen.” His fellow board members recognized him with a “Facility Trustee of the Year” award in 2010. Schoeffling Way in Atlantic Highlands is yet another “thank you” to this indefatigable popular and selfless citizen.
Twenty years since his mayoralty role, Bob still answers to his honorific title of Mayor Bob. Never content to rest when it comes to volunteering, he has held positions as Board president of both the First Avenue Playhouse and Atlantic Highlands library.
Schoeffling says “I always had an interest in history probably generated by one of the teachers I had. She was known as Ma Pennington in Leonardo High School” Continually inquisitive about local heritage, the adult Bob Schoeffling began to collect books and other memorabilia relative to the area. He is enthusiastic when he says, “Atlantic Highlands is a hidden treasure.”
Among Bob’s personal treasures are handwritten slave certificate of sale, commemorative plates from steamship lines, town directories that preceded modern phone books, old advertising pamphlets and posters, newspapers and gazettes, ancient deeds and framed classic photographic science, and Bayshore-related bric-a-brac once sold as cheap souvenirs but now important relics of our history Although no longer an active buyer, Bob has a loyal following of other collectors who still call him when they come across something significant.
Bob Schoeffling was the first President of the Atlantic Highlands Historical Society, whose headquarters is at the 1893 Strauss House on Prospect Circle. Bob says, “I remember hanging sheet rock in there before we got any funding.”
In 2002, Schoeffling wrote the Atlantic Highlands chapter for County Clerk M Clare French’s “Town by Town” book.
Bob Schoeffling’s view of our county’s history is comprehensive when he addresses our richness. .”Some people call it (New Jersey) the Cockpit of the Revolution.” Lots of significant things occurred right here, like after the Battle of Monmouth when the British came right by here on their way to Sandy Hook.” Bob himself is surely one of Monmouth County’s treasures.
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