Dr. Robert H. Schwoebel
Dr. Robert H. Schwoebel, a scholar, teacher, activist, and United States Marine, died in his sleep on October 19, 2021 in Bala Cynwd, Pennsylvania. He was 92 years old.
Dr. Schwoebel was born in Bordentown, New Jersey, in 1929. While still in high school, he told his guidance counselor that he wanted to be a history teacher. He received his B.A. in history in 1951 from Maryville College, Tennessee, his M.A. in history in 1954 from the University of Mississippi, and his Ph.D. in history in 1960 from the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Schwoebel taught history at Temple University from 1957 to 1996. During that time, he published two books, “In the Shadow of the Crescent: The Renaissance Image of the Turk (1967), and Renaissance Men and Ideas (1971), which was recently translated into Turkish. His last book, History and Prophecy in the New World of Francisco Lopez de Gomara (2019) was published when he was 89 years old.
Dr. Schwoebel was first and foremost a dedicated teacher and lifelong mentor to his students, who recognized this by nominating him for the Danforth Foundation E. Harris Harbison Award for Gifted Teaching in 1970, which he won. He was also awarded the Temple University Faculty Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1980. He spent the 1991-92 academic year teaching at the Temple University campus in Rome, Italy. His lifelong mission was to inspire his students and others to grow as whole human beings and to understand the importance of history—both the role of their own family histories and the role of global history in charting the future course of the world.
Dr. Schwoebel spent his life promoting social justice and social change through innovative and pioneering programs he designed and administered at Temple University, including the Student Development Program, the Cooperative Learning Program, and the Center for Contemporary Studies. He contributed to the social movements of the 1960s, and continued throughout his life to contribute his time, money, and intellect to the causes of peace, civil rights, human rights, and immigration—among others. His personal life also reflected his commitment to social justice: he was a founder member of the Pinebrook Community, an intentional community in Paoli; he did volunteer work with African refugees during the year he spent in Rome; and he was a lifelong supporter of a wide variety of international and community organizations. Dr. Schwoebel served as chairman of the Temple University United Christian Ministries from 1967 to 1980, and was active in several local churches. As a young man, he served in the New Jersey and Tennessee National Guards, and then joined the Marine Corps, where he served on for three years active duty, then for 17 years as a Marine Corps Reservist, and finally as an instructor at Quantico.
Dr. Schwoebel was a Renaissance man and an avid traveler. He and his wife Anne spent time in Italy, France, Norway, Finland, Turkey, Morocco, and the Caribbean. While in the Marines, he travelled to the Mediterranean and the Caribbean. He led Temple University students on an extended summer tour through Europe in the summer of 1962. He traveled to multiple countries in South America and East Africa with his older daughter, and he travelled extensively throughout the United States. Beginning in 1962, he spent most of his summers on Swan’s Island, Maine, where he fished, sailed, and foraged for mushrooms, berries, mussels, and clams. He was a prolific reader of fiction and nonfiction, studied a number of foreign languages, and read and spoke Spanish, Italian, French, and German. He turned his backyard in Swarthmore into a paradise for birds, among which he identified dozens of species. He loved gardening (both flowers and vegetables), and cooking dishes from all over the world with his own fresh produce.
A deeply loving and committed husband, father, and grandfather, Dr. Schwoebel survived two wives; his first wife was Barbara Schwoebel (née Stidham), to whom he was married for 29 years; his second wife was Anne Allen (née Hirsch), to whom he was married for 25 years.
He is survived by his daughters Mary Hope Schwoebel and Camilla Schwoebel, and son Sean Allen; grandchildren Kaamila, Lydia, Liban, Amalia, Cole and Yehoon; sons-in-law Steven Curtis Taylor and Abdiaziz Mohamed Ali, and daughter-in-law Nora Dock. He was deeply loved and will be sorely missed.
Memorial gifts may be made to Oxfam America or to Ocean Conservancy.
