Fifty years ago, 16-year-old Robert Schott was looking to complete his Eagle Scout project and was told that work was needed at a nature center being constructed in Fanwood.
Schott decided he wanted to construct a bench for a rest area for visitors at the new center, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year.
“There were a few of us (Scouts) that contributed to the park development including Bob Luisi and Stephen Wilson,” who cut the trails at the Nature Center, Schott said, noting that the trails are named after them. Schott, Luisi and Wilson were all Fanwood residents and members of the Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School Class of 1976. Bob Schott now lives in Cranford.
“Everything that we did (at the Nature Center) was brand new as that was when the park was being developed,” Schott said. “It was a good opportunity to contribute and get our projects done.”
He said his father, Joe Schott, a World War II veteran who celebrated his 102nd birthday earlier this year, helped design the bench.
“We worked together to construct the forms to cut and lay the rebar (and) to mix and pour the cement,” Bob Schott said, noting that his father “probably did half the work.”
“It wasn’t just the bench. I carved out about a 20 by 20 (open space), [which] I called the Robert Schott‘s Rest Area. We framed it with railroad ties. I cleared out all the brush and I may have planted flowers than,” he recalled.
He carved the year 1974 into the bench when he constructed it, which he said is barely legible today, along with his name underneath the bench.
Bob Schott said he had only been back to the Nature Center a few times over the past 50 years, but returned for a trail clean-up day on May 4th.
“I raked out all the weeds and I cleared out a few fallen branches and I cut a few things up just to freshen it up,” he said.
He noted the trails are “really well manicured now and stoned and lined. It’s beautiful.”
Schott said his bench was painted over the years and is “solid as cement can be.”
