Dr. Robert L. Hart, formerly a resident of Ocean City, New Jersey and Aiken, South Carolina, died in Sandy Springs, Georgia on July 10, 2021 just as he had lived his life – with quiet and peaceful strength surrounded by the family that he loved.
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on December 1, 1935 to Harry and Marion Wilson Hart, Bob Hart grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs. Following his graduation from West Chester State College, where he played collegiate basketball and earned top academic honors, he served in the United States Army from 1960 to 1962. During his Army service, he taught English to Spanish-speaking recruits with Company B at the U.S. Army Training Center in Fort Buchanan, Puerto Rico, which he fondly recalled a commanding officer once dismissing as “a bunch of pipe smoking, bridge-playing, overeducated adolescents.”
Following his Army service, Hart earned a master’s degree in English from Temple University, joined the English faculty at Gloucester County College in Sewell, New Jersey, and ultimately earned a doctorate in education from Nova Southeastern University. Over more than fifty years as an educator at the junior high school, high school, and college levels in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and South Carolina, he taught literature and composition to tens of thousands of students and received several honors for distinguished teaching.
A lifelong practicing Christian, Hart served as a deacon, elder, and Sunday School Superintendent at First Presbyterian Church in Ocean City, New Jersey, where he lived for over twenty years. Later, he was an active parishioner at St. John’s United Methodist Church in Aiken, South Carolina, where he retired and lived for fifteen years until moving to Sandy Springs last year.
He is survived by Valerie Shroeder Hart, the love of his life and his wife of nearly 54 years; his son Jeffrey Robert Hart and daughter-in-law Lisa Danaher Hart of Galloway Township, New Jersey; his son Daniel P. Hart and soon-to-be daughter-in-law Amy Kimball of Atlanta, Georgia; grandchildren Jack, Catie, Caroline, Brenden, and Tyler Hart; and sister Esther Wakeley of State College, Pennsylvania.
In lieu of flowers, the family welcomes donations to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.
