Robert G. Jeffrey

Robert George Jeffrey, Jr., age 90, of Wayne passed away Sunday, June 23, 2024, with his family by his side.

Also known as Bob, he was born in the Bronx, New York, to Ethel (Rohrbeck) and Robert Jeffrey. He grew up in the Edenwald section, off Dyre  Avenue, in a modest brick house his father built by hand with Bob's help. Bob attended the prestigious Bronx High School of Science, located at the time off the Fordham Road-Grand Concourse. (Bobby Darin was one of his classmates.) Bob kept in touch with his friends from the old neighborhood for many years, attending the annual reunion of the Allerton Avenue gang each summer for decades.

During the Korean War, he served as an enlisted man in the 3rd Air Command in the Airforce's SAC (Strategic Air Command). Bob's ambition was to become an aeronautical engineer, and learn to be a pilot, but to his disappointment and shock, the Airforce discovered that Bob was color blind and those hopes were thwarted. Instead, after being honorably discharged in 1956 after attaining the rank of Lieutenant, Bob went to college on the G.I. Bill and majored in accounting at Pace University. He later got a masters degree from New York University and became a Certified Public Accountant. (He liked to brag that he found an error on the CPA exam!) His first job was with Haskins & Sells and later, Union Camp Corporation, where in 1972, at the age of 38 he became the country's youngest Comptroller of a fortune 500 company.

In 1959, Bob married his first wife, Carolyn Endres. The pair moved to Wayne, New Jersey, to raise their three daughters, Diana, Christine, and Jennifer. In 1975, Bob was elected to the Wayne Township Board of Education. He served one eventful term before leaving politics to go into the hotel business. 

In 1988, Bob married his second wife, Linda Nardone. They met by chance waiting on line at a Dunkin' Donuts. Together they raised their son, Joseph, also in Wayne. By the early 1990s, Bob had returned to accounting, and started his own firm along with John Booth, a colleague from his Union Camp days. Bob's practice thrived. He eventually branched out to serve international clients in China. Bob would travel to China several times a year on business, a practice he continued until he was in his 80s. In fact, Bob never did retire from his accounting practice, working with clients right up until the day he died.

Bob was a loyal, likeable, loving family man. He enjoyed traveling with his wife Linda; especially memorable was the trip they took to Scotland, his ancestral family's homeland. He was fond of spending time with his grandchildren; and going down the shore every summer to Long Beach Island with the family, where for over forty years, they made many happy memories. He loved gardening, swimming and baseball. He was a lifelong Yankees fan. Although he claimed to be a slow reader, Bob read a lot, especially everything written by the 18th century Scottish novelist, Sir Walter Scott. Bob could talk knowledgeably about almost any topic, but he most loved to discuss history, politics, and sports. He enjoyed biographies of sports heros like Joe Dimaggio, politicians such as Jimmy Carter and Harry Truman. and Civil War general Stonewall Jackson. His guilty pleasure was watching the WWF, and the Sopranos.

Bob is survived by his wife Linda, his daughters Diana Jeffrey, Christine (Scott) Minafri, Jennifer (Thomas) Barthmus, and son Joseph Jeffrey, as well as his grandchildren Sam, Anna Tovah, Rowen, and Max, his two sisters, Lois Sills and Helaine Spina, and his many nieces and nephews. He was predeceased by his parents, by his brother Ronald Jeffrey, and his niece, Helaine Davish.