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Last Fuller Brush Man in Broward dies at 89
Death signals end of an era

By Robert Nolin, Sun Sentinel

6:08 PM EST, November 18, 2010

Blue
eyes twinkling under a broad-brimmed hat, displaying a sample case and a
smile, Robert Schink traipsed the streets of Broward County, peddling
products from another age.

For 50 years.

He was The Fuller
Brush Man, the last of his kind. In September, Mr. Schink died at age
89. Ill health forced him to hang up his sample kit two years ago,
leaving no other representative to knock on doors offering grooming and
cleaning products from the venerable company.

"He's the last of a
dying breed, unfortunately," Brady Gros, Fuller Brush's chief operating
officer, said from his Great Bend, Kan., office.

In 1958, in
Cleveland, Mr. Schink started working for Fuller Brush, the 1906 company
that set the standard for door-to-door sales in the 20th century.

"He
missed it," said James Battle, Mr. Schink's partner of 52 years. "When
he couldn't physically go out anymore, he'd be on the phone calling his
customers."

Mr. Schink's stock in trade were Fuller's famous
boar-bristle brushes, brooms and carpet sweepers. He hearkened back to
an era when families had one car, folks opened doors to salesmen and
stay-at-home moms relied on deliveries of milk, clean diapers and, of
course, Fuller brushes.

Then the culture shifted. People became
more mobile, women entered the work force, homes sat empty during the
day. Mr. Schink summed it up in a 1995 Sun Sentinel profile:

"In
the old days, the ladies waited for me to come around," he said. "It was
a service to these ladies. Not everyone had a car. Not everyone had a
job. And that, of course, has all changed."

But Mr. Schink continued on his dogged rounds, six days a week — "Fullerizing," as he put it, one neighborhood at a time.

"It's very discouraging to find no one at home," he said. "That's my cross to bear."

Mr.
Schink's customers, spanning three generations, were fiercely loyal.
Battle said he received numerous calls and cards upon his partner's
death.

"Women would come up to him and say, 'I remember you from
when I was a little girl,' " he said. "I'm sure that a lot of women had
closets full of Fuller Brushes they bought just because of Robert. He
was a charmer."

Mr. Schink was a natural salesman. In 1929, at
age 8, he peddled magazines for a nickel or a dime in his hometown of
Joplin, Mo. Achieving 85 magazine sales a week, he was featured on the
front page of his hometown newspaper.

Mr. Schink enlisted in the
Army Air Corps during World War II and participated in the air offensive
in the Normandy invasion. After the war he moved to Cleveland and
earned an MBA at Case Western Reserve University.

He met Battle in 1958, the year he started with Fuller Brush, and they moved to Plantation two years later.

When not on the street, Mr. Schink enjoyed stamp collecting, travel and the theater. "He was an interesting chap," Battle said.

Larry
Gray, a Fuller Brush vice president, said he had heard of Mr. Schink,
who made the company's top 100 distributors list several times. "He
produced so much volume over the years for us," Gray said. "Fellows of
that caliber are hard to find these days."

While Fuller Brush
distributors work in Jacksonville, Miami, Winter Haven and Largo, Mr.
Schink's death leaves no one to inherit his Broward County territory.
"Robert Schink was the last distributor in that area," Gray said.

In
addition to Battle, Mr. Schink is survived by a sister, Loyce Tolliver,
a nephew and four grandnieces, all of Spartanburg, S.C.

A
memorial service will begin at 10 a.m. Saturday at Abiding Savior
Lutheran Church, 1900 SW 35th Ave., Fort Lauderdale. Instead of flowers,
the family requests donations to Vitas Hospice Charitable Fund, 5420 NW
33rd Ave., Suite 100, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33309.