PD News

By Ed Ackerman eackerman@psdispatch.com
Pittston Sunday Dispatch Editor

A legend has passed.

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Bob Loftus served in the U.S. Army in the European Theater.

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Jim Crowley, one of the famed Four Horsemen of Notre Dame, left, with Pat Collins and Bob Loftus.

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Robert A. “Bob” Loftus, Sr., mayor of Pittston for 20 years from 1961 to 1980, died Monday, June 22. He was 91.

“He simply loved Pittston,” his daughter Mary Loftus Martin said. “Pittston was his favorite place to be.”

And it seemed Pittston loved him too, Mary’s husband Bob Martin remarked at the PJ. Adonizio Funeral Home Thursday night. Martin said he hardly could believe the number of mourners who said to Mary and her brother, Robert Jr., “your father got me a job.”

Loftus, who grew up in the Depression and served with the U.S. Army in World War II, had been Chairman of the Democratic Party of Luzerne County, served on the Board of Directors and became Vice President of the First National Bank of Pittston, and served as Chairman of the Workmen’s Insurance Fund of PA for several years.

Family friend Michael Clark in a guest commentary piece which appears on page 15 of today’s paper, called Loftus “the last major figure in the Luzerne County Democratic organization’s era of supreme power.”

Clark also writes, “Bob Loftus worked hard in business, government and politics. His recreation pursuits were simple, a nightly five mile walk to Exeter and back, Notre Dame football games in New York or Philadelphia, and a rousing rendition of Irish ballads and old time tunes sung at the pipe organ bar in Duryea’s Cinema Club.”

Loftus, one of the first in the region to take up walking for his health, was referred to as “The Walking Mayor” in a Time magazine article, Mary Loftus Martin said.

His love of Notre Dame football is evidenced by a large photo in his home of the “Four Horsemen” autographed by Jim Crowley.

In an article published in the Pennsylvania Chiefs of Police Association Bulletin in 1964, then Pittston Chief of Police Joe Delaney wrote, “When Robert A. Loftus was inaugurated as Mayor … the city was in financial difficulty and the Police Department was badly in need of new equipment. Now, after little more than two years, the City is in the best financial condition since its founding 100 years ago.”

Sen. Raphael Musto called Loftus “a public servant whose heart and soul was in Pittston and Greater Pittston. That was primary to him, but he was also a skillful County Democratic Chairman. We’ve lost a great leader.”

In addition to his children, Loftus is survived by his beloved wife of 64 years, Rita M. (Shea) Loftus.

His complete obituary appears on page 61.