In Remembrance of Rich Schreibstein

Richard Schreibstein had an easy way with people. He was clever and witty and curious about the world. He loved his wife and daughters, his grandkids and grandnephews, and he was loved by every friend he ever had.

Rich also loved the village of Altamont where he lived for more than 40 years; The Altamont Enterprise, which he ushered into the computer era during his tenure as editor; and photography, recording life with a journalist’s eye. 

On Aug. 8, 2026 during a visit from his daughter and grandchildren, where they played poker and talked about the Rolling Stones, Rich went upstairs, sat down, and while listening to the sounds of the people he loved, he left us. 

Rich was the second son of Robert and Mildred (née Winick) Schreibstein. Rich was born May 2, 1947 in Sheepshead Bay, New York on his father’s 26th birthday. Rich and his father also died on the same day, 22 years apart.

Growing up, the family lived in New York, New Jersey, Georgia, Japan, Germany, and Texas. He and his older brother, Bert, were partners in crime. As children they ran unsupervised through the streets of Europe and touched the Mona Lisa, back when you could do that sort of thing. 

In 1953, when Rich was 6 years old, his father moved the family to Japan where he was stationed. There, Rich was given his first camera, a Brownie — basically a cardboard box with a simple convex-concave lens.

Rich liked to say the first picture he ever took was of Mount Fuji “because you could see Mount Fuji from nearly everywhere.”

In 1961, the Schreibsteins moved to Fort Bliss in Texas. Rich started his freshman year in the brand new Eastwood High School in El Paso, where he took a journalism class with Jackie Goodwin whom he said “probably influenced me more than any person in my life other than my mother and father.”

Rich was the first person to use the new school’s darkroom, developing and printing pictures he’d shot with an old reflex camera. “I took all kinds of photography, from portraits to sports,” he said of his four  high-school years.

Rich went on to major in journalism at the University of Texas at El Paso, and after graduation in 1970 was commissioned into the Army as an officer in the Signal Corps. He was stationed in Germany, close to where he’d spent his youth.

During a visit to Fort Monmouth, New Jersey in 1971, Rich looked up his parents’ old friends, the Quercios. He and their eldest daughter, Ellen, would marry within the year. He was 24 and she was 23. They were married for 55 years.

“We went back to Germany and Ellen gave me a Canon FTb,” Rich recalled. “I must have shot thousands of slides.”

Ellen and Rich then moved to Fort Lewis outside of Seattle and bought their first house in Olympia, Washington. That’s where their daughter, Margaret, was born in 1975. Maggie was bright and beautiful and he and Ellen wanted to go home to New Jersey.

He separated from the Army as a captain in 1976 and they moved to Jamesburg, New Jersey where their second daughter, Katherine, was born. The Schreibsteins stayed there until 1984 when work led them to upstate New York. The family moved to Altamont, a place he fell in love with and where he would be reintroduced to journalism.

The former long-time Enterprise publisher, Jim Gardner, recalled, “Rich was getting the newspaper. He came in to see me and introduced himself. We kind of gelled. First thing you know, I had him doing odds and ends.”

Apple had introduced its first Macintosh computer in 1984 and Rich taught himself how to use it. “He guided us into the computer era,” said Jim, adding, “As the Mac changed, he changed.”

Rich’s passion was writing a humor column, “Done with Mirrors.” “I was always fascinated how he could come up with something for that column every week,” said Jim.

Rich’s topics ranged from national politics to family crises. His humor was never mean and was often self-deprecating. In his column, Rich would repeat his wife’s joke that he was “Mr. Good Enough” because, in restoring his house on Altamont’s Main Street, he had many projects to do, and was pleased if the results were not perfect but “good enough.”

In his later years, Rich returned to photography with a passion. His pictures were not sentimental or cute. Rather they captured  moments that felt real and provoked thought.

Rich built dollhouses for Maggie and Katie, he did science-fair projects and taught his daughters to drive. He was there for graduations and car crashes. He took them to see James Taylor. 

Rich loved being a grandfather. He cried the first time he held his eldest grandchild. Evan is now 15, followed by Adam 12, and Lucy 8. He taught them to fish and play cards. He shared with them his love of history, writing, and photography. 

There will be a display of Rich’s photography at the Altamont Free Library beginning on Oct. 13, 2026.