Princeton Class of 1952

2004 Memorials

As reported in the Class Notes column for the February 9 issue of the Princeton Alumni Weekly, we have learned that Ray McGill '52 died on October 23, 2004, in Baltimore. His entry in the Book of Our History tells of his career in medicine, specializing in dermatology, and the accident in 1993 that forced him to retire and made it impossible for him to attend our 50th Reunion.

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    Classmate Reverend George Mather died peacefully in his sleep in a nursing home in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on September 30, 2004. His widow Doris reports that he had a heart condition and a kind of dementia for the last year of his life.
            George earned his divinity degree at Princeton Theological Seminary and was ordained in 1955. As a Presbyterian pastor, he served churches in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and, from 1971, Ft. Wayne. He was active in civic affairs and enjoyed traveling; in the Book of Our History, he noted that he and Doris had led many religious tours to Europe and the Middle East, visiting over 40 countries.
            His family and many friends and colleagues honored George at a "highly musical" memorial service in the First Presbyterian Church of Ft. Wayne that included presentations by a string quartet and four choral groups.
             Classmates will remember the moving prayer George delivered atour 50th Reunion Memorial service, printed in the 50th Reunion Album.

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Our classmate William R. Starrett died at his home in Lincroft, NJ, on August 30, 2004. Bill's brother Clifford, Princeton '51, passed the word of his death to Dan Duffield. Don Malehorn was Bill's classmate at Morristown High School and roomed with him freshman year at Princeton.
The Morris County (NJ) Daily Record tells us that Bill worked for the Sandia Corporation in Albuquerque, spent several years in Navy, and then was with Bell Laboratories until his retirement in 1994. Bill's outside interests included early music (construction of a harpsichord, and playing keyboards and the recorder), gardening, cross-country skiing, canoeing the rivers of southern New Jersey, and folk-dancing.
Bill's wife of 41 years, Nancy "Jill" Vannote, died in 1997. In addition to his brother Cliff, Bill's survivors include two daughters, Lauren Salani and Becky Cosgrove; one son, Neil; and three grandchildren.

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Roger McLean has informed us that Syd Smith died on August 20, 2004. The Cincinnati papers note that Syd worked for Proctor & Gamble his entire career, in Baltimore, Staten Island and Cincinnati, and in 1977 graduated from Chase Law School. His memberships included the Fairfield Sportsman's Club and the Brookville Lake Sailing Association. His children, Susan S. Mitchell of Bainbridge Island, WA, Sydney G. Smith III of Milford, OH, David J. Smith of Pen Argyl, PA, and Peter B. Smith of Folgesville, PA, survived him, as well as his friend Janet Frazier of Cincinnati. His son Jonathan K. Smith predeceased him. Sydney's former wife, Hannah J. Smith of Pen Argyl, PA, died one day earlier. A service for Syd was held August 30 in Milford, OH. Memorial gifts to the American Diabetes Association were suggested.

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Michael Wynd '52 died June 6, 2004. The 50th Reunion Book of Our History informs us that he lived in Berkeley, that he was married, and that his three children, all married and with a total of three grandchilren, were also living in California.
Mike made a point of not giving us much information about his life in his BOH submission, other than the names of his children and the fact that his career was spent designing and writing instructional materials and in publishing.
Quotations, including "All things fall and are built again," from Yeats, and a poem on "How to Clean a Fish," make up most of his space in the BOH. Another interesting person whom we would like to have known better.

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Classmate Vincent E. Barrett died on June 5, 2004, after a long and difficult battle with cancer. Vince lived in Dallas and is survived by his wife of over 40 years, Maureen, and their children Brian Barrett and Marie Barrett-Stein both of Dallas, TX. His elder son Daniel predeceased him. A funeral mass was held on June 9, 2004 , and he was buried in Calvary Hill Cemetery in Dallas.
Vince loved flying. He wrote in the 40th Reunion book, "the Princeton Flying Club turned out to be my undoing." After service flying for the Navy, he flew corporate aircraft all over the world, mostly for the Diamond Shamrock Corporation. When he retired after 17,000 hours of flying time, he reported he still had the flying bug.

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We've learned from Alex Mills and Jerry Canter that David F. Allen '52 died March 24, 2004. He is survived by his wife Gwen and several children. Jerry represented the Class and spoke at the memorial service held April 2 at the University Club of Chicago, which was led by John Adams '72 of Dave's law firm.

The Chicago Tribune published the following obituary on April 6 under the title "Young lawyers found friend in an old pro."

By Gina Kim, Tribune staff reporter

           David F. Allen was one of those law-firm partners who welcomed new attorneys eager to learn, his colleagues said.
          While others might have seemed busy or unapproachable, he went out of his way to guide young lawyers through the complicated annals of corporate and securities law.
          "He was the guy who would start off the conversation, `John, it's not how you do it,'" recalled John Adams, who worked with Mr. Allen at what is now Schiff Hardin LLP, based in Chicago. "Then he would carefully unbundle, unpackage or explain just how you do it."
          Mr. Allen, 73, died Wednesday, March 24, of complications from emphysema in his Chicago home.
          A 1948 graduate of Lyons Township High School in La Grange, he went to Princeton University with the help of a scholarship. He was elected chairman of his freshman class council and was managing editor of the school newspaper.
          "There are a lot of bright people who are not very nice. But Dave was both," said Don Oberdorfer, a friend who was the newspaper's chairman.
          Mr. Allen graduated in 1952 from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and moved to Washington to work as a case officer for the newly formed Central Intelligence Agency. He had been recruited to help the Cold War effort and oversaw covert operations in Austria.
          But he decided the spy business wasn't his calling, partly because he couldn't discuss his job with anyone, according to his autobiographical entry in his Princeton class' 50th anniversary book. So he left after four years for law school at Stanford University and then joined Schiff.
          Mr. Allen helped take companies public, handled mergers and acquisitions and became an expert on other aspects of financial law that required meticulous attention to detail.
          "Like the best lawyers in that end of the business, I'm not sure he ever went home satisfied," said Adams, a partner at Schiff.
          A father of four children, he took his family on fishing and camping trips, taught Sunday school and served on the Barrington school board from 1970 to 1976. He once showed one of his two daughters the face that can be seen on a full moon.
          "When I was 4 or 5, he pointed out the face to me and he got me to see the eyes," said his daughter Laura.
          Mr. Allen retired from the law firm in 1991 when macular degeneration made it too difficult for him to read, said his wife, Gwen. The high school friends got married in 1981; Mr. Allen and his first wife had divorced five years earlier.
          Mr. Allen was always interested in current events, and his wife read the newspaper to him daily. He sated his love for non-fiction and history books with the help of a reading machine and became a great fan of C-SPAN and the History Channel, his wife said.
          He is also survived by another daughter, Kathleen Jansen; two sons; Jeffrey and Steven; two stepsons, Jed Chase and Theodore Chase; a stepdaughter, Cathryn Chase; and eight grandchildren.
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Oswald A. (Wally) Friend '52 died February 29, 2004, at Eisenhower Medical Center in Palm Springs, California, shortly after starting chemotherapy for recently discovered leukemia. Classmates Roger Berlind, Art Christiansen, Alf Gardner, John Lowry, Jay Master, Paul Mueller, and wives were among those attending the service at St. Margaret's Episcopal Church on March 8. Wally leaves his wife Tamara. Classmates were pleased to see Wally and Tamara at the Washington Mini-Reunion last May. (Thanks to Tom Dosdall and John Lowry for information about Wally.)

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Classmate Sam Ewing, known throughout the U.S. as "Mr. Irish Wolfhound," died February 1, 2004. He was looking forward two years ago to attending our 50th Reunion, but illness prevented it and kept him in and out of hospitals for the rest of his life.

        Sam lived in Chester Springs, Pennsylvania, and the service on February 5 was held in the beautiful chapel at Valley Forge Park. George Aman, Harry Jeanes, Stokes Carrigan, and Charlie Schaefer were among those attending. The chapel was packed with family, including Sam's brother Joe, Princeton '47, and a host of dog lovers. A niece who is an Episcopal priest gave the homily, and Charlie, other friends, family and associates recounted wonderful memories of Sam.

          The procession to the cemetery adjoining the chapel included at least a dozen Irish Wolfhounds. They were Sam's principal interest in retirement, an avocation he shared with his companion, Samuel Houston McDonald.  Sam was President of the Irish Wolfhound Club of America and of the Kennel Club of Philadelphia. He traveled several times to Europe to judge Irish Wolfhound competitions, and his Eagle Kennels produced most of the top winning dogs of that breed for many years.

          Following, slightly edited, is the Philadelphia Inquirer's article on Sam's death, headed "Samuel E. Ewing 3d, dog breeder of note":

         Samuel Evans Ewing 3d, 74, of Chester Springs, a retired lawyer and internationally renowned breeder of award-winning Irish wolfhounds, died of pneumonia Sunday at Graduate Hospital in Philadelphia.
         Mr. Ewing's first pets were cairn terriers and a Gordon setter when he was a boy, but he later made the switch to what he called "the big fellows."
         The Irish wolfhounds bred by Mr. Ewing's Eagle Farms Kennels in Chester Springs were award-winning show dogs that amassed hundreds of championship titles.
          "Sam Ewing was one of the most respected breeders in America," American Kennel Club president Dennis B. Sprung said in a statement. "His contributions to the Irish wolfhounds are legendary."
          Mr. Ewing began breeding the dogs in the early 1950s after purchasing his first Irish wolfhound. "Ballymacad of Ambleside," called "Bally," was 3 years old when Mr. Ewing showed him for the first time in Devon. Handled by Mr. Ewing, Bally won his first breed championship within a year. Mr. Ewing then founded Eagle Farms in Glen Mills and later moved the kennel to Chester Springs.
          Mr. Ewing was the owner or co-owner of the best of breed at the Irish Wolfhound Club of America's National Specialty Show five times spanning four decades. In 1975, he handled Breac O'Shawn McDown of Eagle, the first Irish wolfhound to win the Hound Group at the Westminster Kennel Club show in New York.
          In a 1972 interview, Mr. Ewing said the breeding and showing of Irish wolfhounds was his way of relaxing away from the courtroom and office. A graduate of Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania School of Law, Mr. Ewing practiced law in West Chester for more than 40 years.
          He served as president and board member of the Irish Wolfhound Club of America and was the club's delegate to the American Kennel Club since 1987. He was an officer of clubs including the Kennel Club of Philadelphia and the Bryn Mawr Kennel Club.
          He is survived by three brothers, one sister, and partner Sam Houston McDonald.
          A memorial service will be at 10:30 a.m. today at the Washington Memorial Chapel, Route 23, Valley Forge National Historical Park. Burial is in the church cemetery.
          Memorial donations may be made to the Irish Wolfhound Foundation, c/o David C. Milne, 150 Creek Rd., Phillipsburg, N.J. 08865.

Thanks to Charlie Schaefer and George Aman for the information in this note.

We've learned that classmate Thomas L. Fentress Jr.died February 2, 2004 in North Barrington, IL . He left Princeton in 1948, shortly after he arrived. After a brief career in banking, Tom spent most of his working years as a punch press operator "because it's more fun," he said. Tom is survived by his wife, Ruth, two sisters and three nieces.

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