Rodney Wishart, newspaper executive

Rodney J. Wishart Sr. did more than direct the advertising arm of the Inquirer in the 1980s.

He would leave home early in the morning, but only after dinner at home did he have time to read the words around his ads.

"He would read that entire paper, from cover to cover," checking to see how much space he and his staff had been able to provide for its journalists, his son Rodney J. Jr. said.

On Friday, Oct. 14, Mr. Wishart, 86, who retired in January 1990 as vice president for sales and marketing for the Inquirer, died of complications from multiple sclerosis at his home in Crestwood Manor, a senior community in Whiting, Ocean County, where he had lived for the last four years.

Mr. Wishart grew up in Collingswood, graduated from Collingswood High School in 1948, and served in the New Jersey Army National Guard from 1948 to 1957, his son said.

When he retired from the Guard, he was a master sergeant in a field artillery battalion.

Mr. Wishart lived in Cherry Hill from the late 1950s, until he moved to Manahawkin, N.J., in the early 1990s.

His first job was as an advertising salesman at the Catholic Star Herald in Camden in 1948 and 1949, before taking the same sort of work at the Daily News.

Mr. Wishart was with the Daily News from 1950 to 1955 and then with the Inquirer from 1955 to 1990, where he was promoted to vice president in the early 1980s, his son said.

In the 1980s, the Inquirer and the Daily News were part of Knight Ridder Inc., which owned several newspapers across the nation, including the Detroit Free Press.

"The people at Knight Ridder were offering him the job as publisher of the paper" in Detroit, his son said.

And so his parents "were making numerous trips up there," to learn about the paper and Detroit.

But, his son said, "among the issues was his health," because of slowly developing multiple sclerosis. "A short time after," he turned down the Detroit offer, and "he ended up retiring" in Philadelphia.

Barbara Timmons and her late husband, William, an advertising vice president at Strawbridge & Clothier, became friends with Mr. Wishart and his wife, Alexandra, 35 to 40 years ago.

On one of their trips together, the couples saw the Oberammergau Passion Play, usually performed for five months only once every 10 years by the residents of that Bavarian town.

Mr. Wishart was one of those who were easy to be with on such trips, Barbara Timmons said, because he had "a pleasant outlook on life."

Besides his son and wife of 59 years, Mr. Wishart is survived by sons Scott and Christopher, daughter Lorna Atkinson, and 10 grandchildren.

A life celebration was set for 10 a.m. to noon Saturday, Oct. 22, at Crestwood Manor, 50 Lacey Rd., Whiting, before a noon memorial service there.

Donations may be sent to nationalmssociety.org.

Condolences may be offered to the family at www.ciechanowskifh.com.

wnaedele@phillynews.com

610-313-8134 @WNaedele