Below are the names and images of members who have died since the year 2000. Click on one of them to read an obituary.
According to the Society’s by-laws, the names of members who have died during the preceding year are read at the annual meeting. Also, obituaries are written about those whose families supplement information shared with the Society during the member’s lifetime.
Walter Vance Brewer
1932–2021
Walter Brewer died Saturday, January 16, at the age of 88 following a brief illness. “Wally,” as he was known to friends, was descended from John Brewer, who immigrated to Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1640, as well as from Stephen Hart, an original settler in Hartford, Connecticut, in the 1640s. Wally joined the New England Society in 1973.
Born in Kansas City, Missouri, where he spent the first four years of his life before the family moved to Detroit, Wally attended Beloit College in Wisconsin and studied French. During a junior year abroad in the Loire Valley studying at Tours, he met Elisabeth von Kahlden, a native of Cologne. She was a student in the same international program. The following year she returned to Germany, and he to Beloit where he completed his undergraduate studies in 1954.
Sixty-five years later, their son Geoffrey recounted at Elisabeth’s funeral his German grandfather’s objections to her plans for visiting Wally in the United States. Joachim von Kahlden tried to lure her into remaining in Cologne with the gift of a fur coat. She accepted the coat, but then wore it on the steamship that took her to America—a voyage her father had hoped to avoid. Elisabeth and Wally were married that June in Detroit. Among those in attendance at an intimate ceremony were Wally’s parents, George and Hazel, and his brother, Richard.
Soon after the wedding, Wally volunteered for the draft and served two years in the Army where he worked primarily in conducting psychological interviews. Following discharge, he enrolled in graduate school at Columbia University where he earned a doctorate in Comparative Education. Like his brother Richard, who also earned a PhD, Wally was drawn to teaching. He not only taught but also enthusiastically recruited others to the profession, joyfully expounding on the joys of studying and of seeing young people learn.
He taught at Cold Spring Harbor High School in Huntington and at John Jay High School in Brooklyn before joining the faculty of the City University at Queens College. In the Education Department there from 1968 to 1995, he taught language teachers and also helped place them in teaching jobs throughout New York City.
A memorial service, long delayed by the Covid-19 pandemic, was held on October 30, 2021 at Grace Church Brooklyn Heights where the couple attended services regularly and where Wally once served in lay leadership on the church’s vestry. During that service, Wally’s remains were placed next to those of Elisabeth in the church’s columbarium. Wally is survived by his son Geoffrey, also a member of the New England Society, as well as his daughter-in-law Regan and grandson Henry.
John Joseph Kenny
1930–2021
John Kenny died at his home on Montague Terrace June 14, surrounded by his family. A fourth generation Brooklyn native, “Jack” lived in Bensonhurst as a child before the family moved to Closter, New Jersey. He graduated from Tenafly High School before entering The College of the Holy Cross. At a tea dance, college friends introduced him to Margaret Herrmann, a Marymount undergraduate whom he later married and with whom he raised four children.
Following graduation from Holy Cross, Jack joined the Navy where he trained to become a pilot, his first step in what became a life of flying. In 1956 he joined American Airlines, returning to active duty as a Navy pilot in 1961, and serving either the airline or the Navy for the rest of his career. A highlight was being stationed in Naples, where the young family enjoyed an apartment with memorable views of the bay and of Mount Vesuvius.
In Italy, the family developed what became a life-long love of travel—summering in Paris, touring Ireland, renting a villa in Italy. Jack was famously in charge of such trips, impressing family and friends with knowledge of where he was going and how he was getting there. An exception followed a memorable night of driving in Sicily where, according to his friend Marcia McHam, their entourage awoke to find that the van Jack had been piloting was perched near a precipice.
Invariably family and friends returned home to plan new trips or to resume work on one of the brownstone houses they renovated in Brooklyn Heights. Jack and Peggy were generous hosts, known for the limoncello they served, as well as the chocolate chip cookies and cheesecake they made. The couple also was known for their service to the community at large, where Jack served on the board of directors of the Angle Guardian Home.
After twenty-seven years, Jack retired from the military with the rank of Navy captain. And after thirty-four years he retired from American Airlines as senior captain, as well as Chief Pilot at LaGuardia Airport.
Jack was predeceased by Peggy. He is survived by his children and their spouses, Christopher, Maeve (John), Justin (Peggy), and Deidre. He also is survived by six grandchildren: Dylan, Grace, Owen, Thomas, Nick, and Charlotte.
The family has requested that in lieu of flowers, donations be sent in Jack’s memory to the Brooklyn Youth Chorus or the Brooklyn Heights Association.
Richard J. Wagman
1932–2021
Dr. Richard Wagman died August 26 surrounded by his family following a long illness. A Bronx native, he was a graduate of The Bronx High School of Science. He attended Harvard College and afterward the Harvard Medical School, from which he graduated in 1957 before continuing his training at Harvard’s Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston.
It was in Boston that he met Elizabeth M. Plotz, a recent graduate of Vassar College who was working as a medical librarian. They were married in Brooklyn but soon moved to Naples, Italy where Dr. Wagman served for two years in the Public Health Service. The couple returned to Brooklyn following completion of his Public Health Service term.
In Brooklyn, Dr. Wagman was an internist at the Long Island College Hospital which, like Peter Bent Brigham, was one of the nation’s early teaching hospitals. He belonged to the New York Academy of Medicine and was a fellow of the American College of Physicians as well as the Kings County Medical Society.
Board president of the Brooklyn Friends of Chamber Music, Richard Wagman was an enthusiastic lover of all good music. For 20 years, he and Elizabeth attended performances at the Glimmerglass Opera in Coopers¬town, NY with their friends Diane and Bruce Gregory. The couples were also together for a concert in Carnegie Hall by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra immediately after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Following the performance, Richard took his bravos backstage and in fluent German told members of the orchestra what a memorable musical experience it had been.
Richard Wagman was known also for his fine sense of humor. At a New England Society dinner, he recounted indulging himself on his birthdays to lunch at an expensive Brooklyn restaurant known for its fine beef and rude waiters. Neither ever disappointed when he ordered a hamburger. His laughing listeners enjoyed the retelling of these encounters as much as he did.
Dr. Wagman was regarded as a caring physician who was involved with his patients and with his community as a whole. In addition to leading the Brooklyn Friends of Chamber Music, he was a member of the Roebling Society and the Brooklyn Museum of Art.
Richard Wagman is survived by his wife and their three children: daughters Anne Kenyon of Cary, NC, and Victoria Wagman of Silver Spring, MD, as well as their son James of Windsor Terrace. He is survived also by five grandchildren.
Edward Nicholas Wilson
1936–2020
Brooklyn native Ed Wilson died peacefully on Saturday, October 24 at the home on Garden Place where he lived for seventy years. He was the son of Dorothy Cardwell Wilson and her husband Elmer, who died before Ed was born.
Ed excelled as a student and attended two Jesuit institutions, Regis High School in Manhattan and The College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts. He was in NROTC at Holy Cross, from which he graduated in 1958. Immediately after graduation he served on a destroyer escort that patrolled in the North Atlantic and the Caribbean, the USS Selstrum based in Newport, Rhode Island.
Following two years on active duty in the Navy, Ed entered law school at Columbia University where he was named Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar for academic achievement. After graduation in 1963 he worked in corporate law at the New York firm Wilkie Farr and Gallagher, and subsequently as vice president, secretary, and general counsel of Loral Corp.
Ed was an early supporter of the reform group Voice of the Faithful, which was founded in Boston following revelations of sexual abuse by Roman Catholic clergy soon after the year 2000. In Brooklyn he and his wife Anne were parishioners at the Oratory Church of St. Boniface where Ed served on the parish council. He also chaired the finance committee.
Ed is remembered in his family as a devoted father, a witty raconteur, a lover of theater and a supporter of the arts. He loved travel – especially to visit his children.
He enjoyed history, and was a wine expert who appreciated the best as well as the best values. A loyal Dodgers fan until the team’s “horrific” departure for Los Angeles 1957, he subsequently transferred his loyalty to the Mets. But Citi Field was far afield: he remained, “the ultimate son of Brooklyn.”
In 1999 Ed married Anne Wilburn, who survives him. He is also survived by his first wife Isis Hoffman of Key Biscayne, Florida, and their daughters Terry Samwick of Norwich, Vermont, and Alicia Wilson, of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, two grandchildren, Aidan and Lilian Samwick, and sons-in-law Andrew Samwick and Ernesto Ferrand, as well as Anne’s son and daughter, Fred and Carrie Gravenson of New York City.
He was buried November 7 in the Holy Cross Cemetery of Flatbush, next to the graves of his parents.
Edward S. Reid III
1930–2020
Edward S. Reid died at his home in Brooklyn on July 17. He was born March 24, 1930, in Detroit, Michigan. His parents were Margaret O. Reid and Edward S. Reid, Jr. After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Yale University in 1951, he joined the United States Marine Corps and served two years active duty during the Korean War.
Returning to the United States from Korea, Ted enrolled at the Harvard Law School, and in 1953 married the former Carroll Grylis. After he graduated from law school magna cum laude in 1956, the couple moved to New York where Ted joined the Davis Polk and Wardwell law firm. He became partner of the firm in 1964 and remained there until retirement in 1995, serving the last five years as head of the firm’s Tokyo office.
Ted served on the board of the General Mills Corporation for fifteen years. On the New York City Board of Higher Education he was a strong advocate of maintaining free tuition at the City University. With Barbara A. Thacher he wrote in The New York Times, “. . . the university needs students from every income level . . . [as] a kind of natural integrating force in high education, attracting families that might otherwise leave the city as well as those with limited choices, including many from minority groups.”
He was devoted to the Brooklyn community where he lived on Garden Place and raised four children. He joined the New England Society in 1977, served on the board of directors of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden for twenty-nine years, and served five years as chairman of the Brooklyn Museum where he was a trustee for over a quarter of a century.
Lovers of music, Ted and Carroll attended the Metropolitan Opera regularly, as well as concerts of the New York Philharmonic and performances at Bargemusic, the Brooklyn waterfront venue where he served on the board of directors. Ted and Carroll eventually moved to Pierrepont Street where a neighbor remembers first hearing Ted’s piano playing, and how it led to lively discussions of Horowitz, Richter, and Rachmaninov. He recalled also Ted’s love of children, and his love of dogs – “. . . not a slight thing. Dogs know who the good guys are.”
Ted is survived by his wife of sixty-five years, his sister Claudia, and brother William; children Carroll (and Mack) Highet, Richard (and Jill) Reid, Jenny (and Michael) McTigue, Margaret (and Matt) Boyer; twelve grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. A private grave-side service was held July 30 for family members at the Quogue Cemetery. The family welcomes contributions in Ted’s memory to the Church of the Atonement (Quogue).
Richard Woodward Hulbert
1929–2020
Richard Hulbert died in Brooklyn July 8. A member of the Society since 1998, he was born in Cambridge and grew up in Somerville, Massachusetts. An outstanding student, he attended Phillips Academy-Andover, Harvard College, and Harvard Law School. As an undergraduate, he played soccer, served on a debate team, and graduated summa cum laude. He won a Sheldon Fellowship to travel in Europe and North Africa. During law school he married the former Dorothy Hanni, became a father, and graduated magna cum laude.
Upon graduation, he began work at the new law firm Cleary, Gottlieb, Friendly and Hamilton where he remained throughout his career in law, becoming a partner and then managing partner in 1979. During a varied career in law he represented celebrities, and made a successful appeal on behalf of a corporation before the U.S. Supreme Court. Beginning in 1983, he worked for six years in the firm’s Paris office, concentrating on international litigation and arbitration.
While still practicing law at Cleary Gottlieb, Dick taught part-time at the University of California – Berkeley School of Law, worked briefly at the American University of Armenia, and, for over twenty years, served as an adjunct professor at the New York University School of Law.
For six years Dick was American Vice-Chairman of the Court of Arbitration of the International Chamber of Commerce in Paris and was a member of the American Law Institute.
Deeply involved in the community, Dick served as trustee of both the Brooklyn Museum and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. He was a director of the Cunningham Dance Foundation. Hiking in New England, skiing, and playing tennis were his favorite pastimes. He also assisted the New England Society’s membership outreach.
Dick was a “brilliant, hard-working, successful . . .Mets fan” says member Bill Weisberg, a friend since student days at PS 8 of Dick’s daughter Laura—one of “four wonderful children” whom Dick helped to raise.
Dorothy Hulbert pre-deceased Dick in 2009. He is survived by his companion Marilane Spencer, and four children—Ann, Laura, Mary and Jonathan—as well as several grandchildren. They welcome donations in his memory to the Southern Poverty Law Center, 400 Washington Avenue, Montgomery, AL 36104.
William Lee Younger, Jr.
1933–2020
William Lee Younger, Jr. died May 13 at his home on East Fifty-Second Street in Manhattan. A native of Blacksburg, Virginia, Bill’s mother Adela Cain Younger was a teacher. His father, William Lee Younger, was the director of athletics at Virginia Tech.
Bill attended school in Blacksburg before matriculating at the College of William and Mary, from which he graduated in 1955. He worked in New York until 1958, then taught in Savannah for one year before returning to New York City to continue his teaching career. While teaching, he earned his master’s degree from Radford University.
For thirty-one years Bill taught English and Latin at the Town School, a pre-preparatory school in New York City, where the yearbook was dedicated to him in 1968. In that year, Dover published his popular “Old Brooklyn in Early Photographs.” This book reflected an abiding interest in history—from which the New England Society benefitted greatly with the publication of his “A History of the Society” in the 1980 Centennial Handbook.
Both publications were based on research at The Long Island Historical Society where Bill worked during summer vacations. He became increasingly involved in the governance of that society—known now as the Brooklyn Historical Society. He served there for years as a member of its board of directors and as board secretary. He also was a member of several patriotic and cultural organizations.
He and his companion, Joseph A. Henehan, were generous hosts at the brownstone home they purchased and renovated during the 1960s as the “back-to-the-city movement” got underway in Park Slope. Joe Henehan was also involved in research for the society’s Centennial Handbook—contributing extensive lists of those who served as officers or committee chairmen. He compiled a “Grand Roster” of all who had joined.
After Joe died in 2007, Bill kept the house on Lincoln Place for several years before moving to Manhattan. However, he consistently supported the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn. On the night before his death became known to members, his writing was quoted extensively at a board meeting of the Society as plans were weighed in the wake of news that the historical society was to become part of the Brooklyn Public Library.
Bill Younger is survived by his sister Mary Carter (“Pat”) Younger Brown, of North Chesterfield, Virginia, a niece Ellen B. Blackburn of Parker, Colorado, and a nephew Roderick Dew Brown, of Goochland, Virginia. He was buried July 13 in the family plot in Blacksburg. Contributions in his memory may be made to the Royal Oak Foundation, 20 West 44th Street, #606, New York, NY10036.
Charles W. Wilder
1929–2020
Charles W. Wilder died in his sleep at his home on Grace Court Monday, January 27, 2020, his ninety-first birthday. The birthday had been celebrated two days earlier at a family gathering.
Born in Newton, Massachusetts, and brought up in Brunswick, Maine, Charles was the son of Elisabeth Clark Wilder and Philip Sawyer Wilder. Philip Wilder, alumni secretary and assistant to the president of Bowdoin College, was guest speaker during the 1970s at an annual meeting of the New England Society.
Charlie attended Phillips Academy-Andover before matriculating at Bowdoin. Graduate studies in English at Columbia University were interrupted by the Korean War, during which he served in the Navy as a communications officer. He returned to Columbia after the war, but switched his studies to the law school.
Following graduation Charlie became Associate at the White and Case law firm, and clerked for the Hon. Leonard P. Moore of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. Judge Moore, a resident of Brooklyn Heights, was the person who suggested that Charlie might like living in Brooklyn.
Charlie’s clerkship in the Second Circuit was followed by work as counsel to General Electric, which honored him in the 1960s for imaginative work on the company’s Progressland Exhibit at the New York World’s Fair. He later worked as counsel to Texasgulf, Inc.
At the birthday party of a relative in New York, Charlie met Elinor Dean, a Radcliffe College graduate and the daughter of Vera Micheles Dean, a distinguished professor in International Development. They were married in 1957. Charlie joined the New England Society in 1975, and two decades later Ellie became the first woman to join, after a bylaws change welcomed women as members. The couple traveled widely, including tours with groups from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and Smithsonian.
A great lover of choral music, Charlie was a founding member of what is known now as the Grace Chorale of Brooklyn. At a special ceremony he was honored by the group for thirty-five years of service and participation. They sang at his memorial service on March 7 at Grace Church.
Charlie is survived by his wife of 62 years, Elinor; their son and loving care-giver Michael; son Stephen and his partner David; daughter Elisabeth and son-in-law Chris; three grandchildren; and three nieces from California and Washington who attended his memorial service. The family welcomes contributions in Charlie’s memory to Doctors Without Borders, and to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.
Harrison Merrill Davis III
1938–2019
Harrison Davis died November 26, 2019, following several bouts with cancer over a period of five years. Despite his illness and professional obligations, Harrison remained active in the work of the Society.
The son of Harrison M. Davis, Jr. and Lydia Sturdivant Riley, Harrison was born in Hingham, Massachusetts. His father was an administrator at schools in New England, Arizona, and New York, including the Storm King School in Cornwall-on-Hudson, where he was headmaster.
Harrison graduated from New York Military Academy in 1957 and attended Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, before transferring to Hartwick College in Oneonta, New York. Following enlistment in the Army, he worked for many years in banking—first at Chase Manhattan and later at Bankers Trust. Increasingly interested in facilities management and design, he worked also at Prudential Life and at Cushman and Wakefield, before forming his own consulting service.
Harrison served the Society as president from 2006 to 2012, but his volunteer work was primarily in education. For twenty years he served on the board of directors of the Storm King School, and for nearly forty years he was the New England Society’s Scholarship Committee Chair.
As chairman of the scholarship committee, Harrison interviewed and recommended over one hundred students for supplementary scholarship awards. He followed closely their undergraduate progress and, always with a smile, readily recited their postgraduate successes. At the Society’s 2019 holiday reception for scholars, a parent and two students responded to news of Harrison’s death with warm statements of appreciation concerning his interest in them and his encouragement of their work in college.
He is survived by his wife, Marilyn Lasner Davis of Brooklyn, and their son, Stuart of Jacksonville, as well as two sisters, Lydia Adams Davis of Beacon, New York, and Margaret Paul-Cavallier of Paris, France.
He is also survived by two sons, Jonathan and Jeffrey, and a daughter, Alexandra, from a first marriage to Betsy Wagner of St. Petersburg, Florida, which ended in divorce.
Amy Talcott Farooqi
1961–2019
Amy Joye Talcott Farooqi died at Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital December 5, four days after her fifty-eighth birthday. A memorial service was held December 14 at Plymouth Church where she had been a member for many years, and where she served as an administrator.
A native of Evanston, Illinois, Amy moved to Connecticut and ultimately to Brooklyn while studying at the Parsons School of Design. A fourth-generation embroiderer, she designed clothing patterns and apparel at Vogue for twelve years. Economic and editorial changes eventually caused her to seek other employment, and she joined the staff at Plymouth Church where she served for many years in various capacities.
It was as an administrator at Plymouth Church that Amy was especially helpful to the New England Society. Holiday receptions for the Society’s scholarship students and their families for many years were held immediately after college exams, when exhausted students and their families sometimes met for the first time since Thanksgiving. Coordinating the efforts of church staff, Amy went out of her way to assist Scholarship Chairman Harrison Davis and his wife Marilyn in creating a festive, upbeat holiday atmosphere.
Amy’s enduring passion for design was very much on display December 14. Her sketchbook and several dresses that she had designed—including a wedding dress and a baptismal gown—were brought by grateful parishioners and friends to be seen by those who crowded into Hilles Hall for a reception following the memorial service. Not on display was the church’s altar cloth, which Amy designed and embroidered for use on communion Sundays, but other fabrics which she created were shown around the room.
New England Society member Jacque Jones was with Amy at the time of her death, and she was among those who spoke at the memorial service. Others who participated included Amy’s son Amos Farooqi, her sister Molly, Plymouth Senior Minister Brett Younger, and the church’s choir under the direction of Bruce Oelschlager.
Amy is survived by her husband, Ahsan Farooqi, and her son Amos, as well as her sisters Molly Talcott and Betsy Asher, and her brother Jim Talcott. She was predeceased by her son Aaron.
Dwight B. Demeritt, Jr.
1928–2019
Dwight Demeritt died January 12, 2019 following extended illness at a hospice facility in Orono, Maine. This is the university town where he attended high school and graduated from college in 1951.
Dwight was the only child of Dwight and Ethel Demeritt. His father was Professor of Forestry at the University of Maine, where Dwight earned a degree in liberal arts. He studied law at Columbia University, and on graduation in 1954 joined the Army. He served three years in counterintelligence, two of them in West Germany.
On discharge from the Army, Dwight returned to New York and pursued with success his vocation, admiralty law, and his avocation, American history. He pursued with equal success the hand in marriage of Jean S. Surridge, who taught Skidmore College nursing students. The couple settled on Hicks Street in Brooklyn Heights.
Dwight was active for many years on the boards of various organizations, including the New England Society, the Brooklyn Heights Association, Grace Church Brooklyn Heights, Packer Collegiate Institute, India House, the Crown Point Foundation, the Maine Historical Records Advisory Board, Friends of Fogler Library at the University of Maine, and the American Society of Arms Collectors.
Perhaps his greatest distinction was as president of the Long Island Historical Society (now the Brooklyn Historical Society), but he was a member of several other historical groups. He was an authority on early American firearms and he wrote or co-authored a number of essays, including a study of the Battle of Long Island. His last project involved locating and inventorying 18th and early-19th century cannon brought to Brooklyn during World War II. These were buried (nose down) along docks in the Brooklyn Navy Yard to help moor transport ships being launched rapidly in the war effort.
Dwight was predeceased by his wife Jean in 1994, next to whom he will be buried in Orono. They are survived by their son David, Professor of Environmental Policy, Kings College, London, their daughter Annie, who lives on Staten Island, and Annie’s son Jonathan.
William B. Pennell
1935–2019
William Pennell died April 29, 2019, at his home in Kendal-on-Hudson in Tarrytown following an extended illness. A native of Mineral Ridge, Ohio, Bill attended Harvard College, where he earned his Bachelor of Arts in 1957, and where he met Peggy Polsky, a student at Radcliffe. Their wedding in 1958 began a sixty-one year marriage.
During the year he waited for Peggy to graduate, Bill began a six-year enlistment in the U.S. Army Reserves, serving six months of active duty. The newly married couple moved immediately to Philadelphia where Bill enrolled in law school at the University of Pennsylvania. He made law review at Penn, graduated cum laude in 1961, and served the next year as law clerk to the Hon. Edward Weinfeld in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Bill loved New York. His first visit to the city was recounted years later by his daughter Kate. Bill was thirteen years old. Following a long train ride from Ohio he was met after midnight by his aunt and uncle, artists living in Greenwich Village. “His aunt wrapped him in a hug, asked if he was hungry and whisked him off to a restaurant. Bill said anyplace where you could go to a restaurant in the middle of the night was a place he wanted to live.”
Live there he and Peggy did. Following the clerkship in Federal Court to Judge Weinfeld, Bill joined the Shearman and Sterling law firm in 1962 as associate. The couple settled on Cranberry Street in Brooklyn Heights. At work Bill was involved in litigation, arbitration, and counseling, according to the firm. In 1971 he was promoted to partner.
In the Brooklyn community, Bill served on the board of the Brooklyn Heights Association and was President from 1971-1972. He also served as chairman of the board of directors of the Willoughby House Settlement in Fort Greene. He was a member of the Federal Legislation Committee of the Bar Association of the City of New York. And he traveled extensively with his family.
Bill retired from Shearman and Sterling in 1991, but remained active in the cultural life of the City. A member of many museums, he subscribed to the Metropolitan Opera, the New York Philharmonic, the Saint Luke’s Chamber Orchestra, and the N.Y. City Ballet. He maintained these subscriptions after moving from Brooklyn Heights to Kendal-on-Hudson. His family said he was well-known to taxi drivers in Tarrytown who, late at night, drove him home from the train station following his visits to the City.
Bill is survived by his wife Peggy, their daughter Kate of Brooklyn, and their son Thomas of Boulder, Colorado.
Donna Pollack McCarthy
1946–2018
Donna Pollack McCarthy died December 20, 2018, at Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital following a three-month illness. A memorial service was held in Southampton, New York at St. John’s Episcopal Church on December 24.
A member of the New England Society for over ten years, Donna was a native of Melrose, Massachusetts, before she left for New York to pursue a career in sales. She and her family lived on Monroe Place in Brooklyn Heights.
Donna was active in a variety of church, community service, and non-profit organizations. She chaired the Brooklyn Chapter of the American Red Cross, where according to her successor, “She really held the place together.” She also was president of the Brooklyn Heights Garden Club, co-chaired the membership committee of the Heights Casino, participated in Mrs. Fields Literary Club, and was an active member of Grace Episcopal Church.
For her community service, Donna was honored with a key to the borough. However, her son Justin says that of all her associations and activities, “The one she really enjoyed telling people about was the Auxiliary Police Department. In the mid-’70s, Brooklyn Heights was far from what it is today, so Mom decided to don a badge and patrol the neighborhood working with the 84th Precinct. She absolutely loved it!”
Donna is survived by her mother, Sarah Pollack of Melrose, her sons Justin of Southampton and John of Brooklyn, and their wives Olivia and Marti, as well as three grandchildren, Crispin, Lucas, and Bodhi. She also is survived by a sister Diane Manganaro and a brother David Pollack, both of Melrose.
Thomas M. Canning
1926–2017
Thomas Canning died June 29 at the Westminster Arbor Health Center in Austin, Texas, following a long illness. A native of Providence, Rhode Island, he attended schools there before enlisting in the Navy during World War II. Upon discharge from the Navy, he enrolled at Providence College from which he received his bachelor’s degree in 1949.
Following graduation, he moved to New York City, where he became a securities analyst focusing on the military and civil aerospace industries. It was in New York that his sister introduced him to Joan Hill, a librarian whom he married in 1962. By the time of their retirements, Tom was a senior securities analyst at Standard & Poor’s and Joan was head librarian at the Brooklyn Business Library.
The couple had two children: Charlotte and Andrew. Participants in the back-to-the-city movement, the four Cannings moved to Carlton Avenue in Fort Greene in 1971. Both children attended the Saint Ann’s School in Brooklyn Heights.
Tom joined the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn on March 28, 1974, and served on the Society’s board of directors for many years, eight of them as vice-president.
He and Joan shared an enthusiasm for classical music and enjoyed Lincoln Center subscriptions. Tom was an involved father who closely followed his children’s interests—particularly theater, baseball, and telling jokes.
Tom was well-known for his dry sense of humor, and his friends enjoyed watching his smile, which invariably spread from his eyes. When he retired—first to Naples, Florida, in 2000 and later as a widower to Austin where his daughter is a professor—he was greatly missed. In addition to his children, he is survived by their spouses Fritz Schwentker and Michelle Miller, and two grandchildren, Fritzie Schwentker and Theo Canning. A few months after his death, his son became the Society’s newest member.
Mark Wall Bennett
1952–2015
Mark Bennett died on August 26, 2015, at the Visiting Nurses of New York Hospice Center, Bellevue Hospital, following a nine-month illness with esophageal cancer.
As a member of the board of directors of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn, Mark designed the Society’s website, reducing the cost of correspondence with high school personnel, enabling the Society to progress with establishing a library (one of its goals in 1880), and facilitating publicity concerning the Society’s purposes and activities.
A native of Norwalk and Westport, Connecticut, Mark attended school there before coming to New York where he studied fine arts and art education as an undergraduate at Pratt Institute. He continued his studies at Pratt, The School of Visual Arts, and, most recently, as a candidate for a master’s degree in graphic communications and technology at New York University.
Although art direction and design was his profession, drawing, photography, and painting were his chief creative interests. He painted in oil and acrylics as well as watercolor in his studio at home. In the subways of New York City he focused on pencil portraiture, making detailed sketches while riding to and from work. His interest in drawing, developed at a very early age, was a pleasure he enjoyed all his life.
Mark’s career included work as art director and studio manager at SourceMedia, The Reserve, Merrill Lynch, the NYC School Construction Authority, and PriceWaterhouseCoopers. Additionally, he worked as a freelance designer for many publishers and advertising firms. He received a number of professional awards in graphics: the American Graphic Design Award (2006 and 2009), two GDUSA In-House awards, and a Certificate of Excellence in 1998 from a manufacturers association. He was a member of the Art Directors Club, the Graphic Artists Guild, and Icograda IDA.
In addition to his service on the board of the New England Society as communications director, Mark’s volunteer activities included work on leadership and construction teams at Habitat for Humanity—work that he did every summer for over twelve years. He also served faithfully in many capacities at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan.
Mark is survived by Amy Elizabeth Prast Bennett, his wife of eighteen years. He is survived also by a sister, Laurinda Simoson of Somerville, South Carolina, and a brother, Thomas Bennett of Norwalk, Connecticut.
Members of the Society are invited to a service celebrating Mark’s life at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, September 8, at Redeemer Presbyterian Church, 150 West 83rd Street (between Columbus and Amsterdam Avenues). In lieu of flowers, contributions in Mark’s memory to Hope for New York, Pratt Institute, or Habitat for Humanity of the Chesapeake will be appreciated by his family.
Bronson Binger
1930–2013
Bronson Binger died on December 23 at his daughter’s home in Housatonic, Massachusetts following a long illness that began with kidney failure.
Born in Manhattan, Bronson graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy and Harvard College before earning a graduate degree in architecture at Carnegie Mellon University.
Bronson’s civic interests as well as his profession led to prominence in the back-to-the-city movement, which dramatically affected New York City in the last four decades of the 20th century. He was chairman of the Landmarks Committee at the Municipal Art Society, where he was vice president. He led the campaign for City designation of Carnegie Hill as a Landmark district, and he founded the Historic District Council, a citizens committee with representatives of historic districts throughout the City. He was closely involved in creation of the Sailors’ Snug Harbor and Metropolitan Museum Historic Districts. He was deeply involved in Friends of Cast Iron Architecture.
Bronson served New York City as Assistant Commissioner of Capital Projects for both the Parks Department and the Department of General Services. He was best known for the restoration of Union Square during the first Koch administration, but he also headed design teams that worked with Central Park Administrator Elizabeth Barlow Rogers to restore Bethesda Terrace, Sheep Meadow, the Dairy, and various other park structures. Bronson was also an early Project Director of the South Street Seaport, and he headed many other projects, including restoration of Brooklyn Borough Hall and restoration of Saint Felix Street in the BAM Historic District.
Bronson served on the vestries of Church of the Heavenly Rest in Manhattan, and, later, Grace Church Brooklyn Heights. He was chairman of the board of Forestdale, Inc., the Queens-based foster care agency, where he had earlier helped pioneer the Fathering Initiative, a movement that has successfully re-engaged men in their families.
He was the recipient of numerous awards from Friends of Cast Iron Architecture, the City Club of New York, the New York Chapter of AlA, the Parks Council, the American Society of Landscape Architects, the Municipal Art Society, Friends of the Upper East Side Historic Districts, and (with Ann Walker Gaffney) the Historic District Council.
Bronson is survived by his sister Frances Mitchell; his partner Ann Gaffney of Brooklyn Heights; his first wife, Susan S. Binger of Manhattan; his second wife, Julie Wang of Brooklin, Maine, and Benin, West Africa; his three children, Lucie Spiller, Sarah B. James, and Walter D. Binger; two step-children, Timothy Wang and Katharine Wang; five grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.
A memorial service will be held at Grace Church, Brooklyn Heights at 11 a.m. on Saturday, January 11, 2014. The church’s sanctuary is undergoing year-long reconstruction, a project that Bronson helped direct. Consequently, his memorial service will be held in the church’s Guild Hall.
John C. Sutherland
1928–2013
John C. Sutherland died April 20 at his home in Park Slope following a long illness.
The son of Carlyn Hoblitt Sutherland and Ruth Jane Sutherland, John was born September 21, 1928, in Portland, Oregon; until he came East for college, all his schooling was in Bellingham, Washington, where the family moved soon after his birth. He was one of four children, including two sisters, the late Mollie S. Reeve and the late Janet Sutherland. His brother David is emeritus professor of biology at the University of Nebraska at Omaha.
John was a 1950 graduate of Yale and a 1952 graduate of the Yale Law School. He was nominated for membership in the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn by Joseph Henehan and William Lee Younger in 1988.
During the Cold War, he served in Germany as an Army intelligence officer. Subsequently he was a trust officer at Irving Trust Company and a senior portfolio manager at Lord Abbett in New York. He also served as a private consultant for Nakagama and Wallace.
He was very active in the Brooklyn community, particularly Park Slope where he served on the board of the Montauk Club for years and where he was treasurer. He also was president of the board of the Brooklyn Music School in Fort Greene. He served on the board of the Center for Contemporary Opera, and he was a member of the Yale Club. John was a generous supporter of the Lambda civil rights fund as well as the scholarship program at the music school.
John survived his partner of many years, Martin Sanford. In addition to his brother David, John is survived by his brother-in-law William Reeve, his nephews Michael Reeve and Timothy Reeve, and Timothy Reeve’s children Alan Reeve and Joanne Reeve.
Following cremation, a private memorial service was held in Brooklyn. His ashes will be taken to his vacation home in Honolulu by Barbara and Gabe Plumer, long-time friends and neighbors in Brooklyn.
Contributions in John’s memory may be made to help defray tuition expenses of deserving music students through The Sutherland Memorial Scholarship Fund, Brooklyn Music School, 126 Saint Felix Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217.
Margaret Glos
1936–2012
Margaret Beach Glos, known to friends and associates as Judy, died October 18th following a year-long fight with cancer.
Judy Glos joined the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn in 1999. She was descended from Robert Cushman, an organizer of the Plymouth colony in Holland and later its agent in London. She was descended also from four of the pilgrims who sailed on the Mayflower, and others who came to New England between 1630 and 1680.
Born in Manhattan, January 20, 1936, Judy attended the Chapin School, Smith College, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Despite severe dyslexia, she graduated with honors in astrophysics from Smith in 1958 and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.
Judy worked first in the school textbook division of McGraw Hill and later at the Society for Nuclear Medicine, initially as editor of its journal and later as its chief executive. Her interest in management led her to M.I.T. where she earned an MBA in 1978, and later to form a successful management consulting firm. She was prominent in association management, but also worked in commercial real estate and later at the Mary McDowell School.
Her husband Stando Glos, a native of Prague, was a book publisher until the expropriation of his company by Czechoslovakia’s communist government. As a refugee in the United States, Stando worked first at McGraw Hill where he met Judy. He left McGraw Hill to form the Scroll Press, a children’s book publisher. He died in 1988.
Judy and Stando Glos are survived by three children: Alec, a businessman in China; Maya, a teacher in New Hampshire; and Andrew, a Methodist minister in New Jersey. They also are survived by six grandchildren.
A memorial service will be held at Grace Church Brooklyn Heights on Saturday, November 17, at 10 a.m. The Rev. Steven Muncie, a member of the New England Society and the church’s rector, will officiate. A reception will be held afterward in the parish’s Guild Hall.
Richard Hoskins Eckfeldt
1939–2011
Richard Eckfeldt died July 8, 2011, after a protracted illness. A vigorous athlete most of his life, he had seemed to recover some strength recently, as pictured last month, above, but he succumbed Friday at Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital.
Dick Eckfeldt was descended from New Englanders in the Boston area. As a child, he spent the summer at camp in Connecticut, and as a teenager he was a camp counselor in Maine. He was nominated for membership in the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn by Robert Belknap and Henry Putzell, and elected on September 30, 1991.
Born April 14, 1939, in Clayton, Missouri, he was raised primarily on the Main Line outside Philadelphia where his father worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad. He graduated from the Haverford School in 1957, and from Princeton University four years later, cum laude. He was proud of the varsity football and lacrosse teams on which he played at Princeton.
Dick also was in the college’s Marine Corps R.O.T.C. program, and for three years after graduation he served in an air control squadron based in South Carolina and posted to the Far East. He became 1st Lieutenant and Senior Air Director of his unit. In 1964 he returned to civilian life and entered the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania where in 1966 he earned an M.B.A.
For most of his professional career, Dick worked for Avon Products, Inc., developing overseas markets. He lived variously in Europe and the United States and traveled extensively in the Far East, India, South America, and South Africa.
At Grace Episcopal Church in Brooklyn Heights, Dick was a member of the vestry and, with Patrick Owen Burns, led the ushering teams. A tennis and squash player, he was an active member of the Heights Casino.
He is survived by Martha, his wife of forty years, and by his daughter Sarah. A memorial service will be held in the fall.
Joseph A. Henehan
1931–2007
Joseph A. Henehan died Tuesday, September 3, in Brooklyn following an illness caused by pancreatic cancer.
Joe Henehan joined the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn in September 1979, and served as a member of its board of directors, as well as the Society’s secretary, for many years in the 1980s and 1990s.
He conducted extensive research in the Society’s archives, now held at the Brooklyn Historical Society, and then known as the Long Island Historical Society. In 1984 this work was published in the Centennial Handbook of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn. It included a “Grand Roster” of all members elected to membership in the Society since its founding, as well as comprehensive lists of officers and committee chairmen.
A native of Trenton, New Jersey, Joe attended public schools in New Jersey before entering the Class of 1952 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During the Korean War immediately after graduation he served in the Army.
Until 1963 Joe lived in Eastern Massachusetts, first in Boston and later in Scituate. For most of his professional career he worked in New York City as an economist in general management at American Telephone and Telegraph. He interviewed applicants for admission to MIT, and, in addition to the New England Society, was a member of The Princeton Club.
Following retirement Joe traveled extensively, especially in Europe.
Joe is survived by his sister, Mary Henehan Byrne of Fort Lauderdale, and by William Lee Younger, of Brooklyn, his partner of many years.
A memorial service was held on Tuesday, October 23, at Saint Thomas Church in New York City. The Rev. Robert Stafford, Pastor, officiated. The Very Rev. Harry E. Krauss, Dean of the Cathedral of St. John, Providence, Rhode Island, delivered the homily.
It was requested that in lieu of flowers, contributions be sent to MIT, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge MA 02139.
Frederick Arthur Halla
1917–2003
Frederick Arthur Halla died Tuesday, November 18, 2003, from complications of congestive heart failure. He was 86 years old.
Fred Halla joined the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn in 1989, and subsequently was an active member of the board of directors. He succeeded William Younger as the Society’s historiographer and served in this office until his death.
Born in Harlem, June 21, 1917, Fred attended school in New York and New Jersey before entering West Chester State College in Pennsylvania from which he graduated in 1939 with a degree in education. He also attended the University of Pennsylvania and Boston University, where he earned a master’s degree in educational supervision. During World War II he served in the Coast Guard.
As a young college graduate, Fred taught in Pennsylvania and Puerto Rico as well as Maine. He was Superintendent of Eastern District Elementary Schools in Portland, Maine, for many years, and later administered Head Start and other education programs in Maine and New York State.
Fred lived in or visited over thirty countries on five continents, but he returned to Maine frequently and wrote about it often, especially after he moved to Brooklyn and went into the newspaper business. With Dozier Hasty, publisher of the Brooklyn Heights Press and Cobble Hill News, he formed a company known as Eagle Publications. This was in 1996, the year that The Brooklyn Daily Eagle was purchased, and soon after the purchase of The Brooklyn Record (1992) and The Brooklyn Phoenix (1996). He was editor of the Eagle, Record, and Phoenix until his death. In fact, he wrote an editorial, “Confessions of an Old Lobsterman,” which appeared in the same edition of the Eagle that announced his death on page one.
A candidate for Congress from Maine in 1966, Fred was extremely active in a wide range of civic and non-profit organizations. These included local, regional, and national offices in professional organizations, the Kiwanis Club, the Girl and Boy Scouts of America, and the Salvation Army. Civic activities in Brooklyn included service on the boards of directors of Respect for Law Alliance, the Municipal Club, the Brooklyn Club, and the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn. From 1992 to 2001 he was a featured speaker at the annual Battle of Brooklyn Memorial Service in Fort Greene Park and at Green Wood Cemetery. He was speaker and Man of the Year for the 1997 Brooklyn Memorial Day Parade. In 1996 he received the Distinguished Service Award of the Brooklyn Chapter of the American Red Cross, and in 1999 he was an honoree at the American Lung Association’s annual dinner in Brooklyn.
Fred Halla was married to the late Doris Smith Halla. He is survived by their two sons and five grandchildren. His older son Jan lives with his wife, Mary Lou Halla, in Maine. Their children Cherise and Lori live in Florida and Virginia, respectively. His son Lee lives in Ireland with his wife Dawn and their three children Kristin, Konrad, and Jamie.
John Charles McDonald
1926–2003
John McDonald died Monday, January 20, 2003, of cancer. He was 76 years old. A member of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn for twenty-two years, John served on the Society’s board of directors until his death.
John Charles McDonald was born in Duluth, Minnesota, June 2, 1926. He served in the U.S. Navy at the end of World War II, and then went to Georgetown University. He continued his studies at Harvard Law School from which he graduated with highest honors.
He worked several years at the Mudge-Rose law firm in New York. Eventually he concentrated entirely on trademark law and moved to Sterling Drug, Inc., where he became Division Vice President. When he retired in 1990 he had served as head of the United States Trademark Association.
Particularly interested in the theater, John was vice president of The Acting Company, a non-profit organization in New York devoted to training actors in the classical tradition. He served on this group’s board of directors for twenty years.
John is survived by his wife Louanna O. Carlin; by the children of his late wife Bettie McDonald, David D. McDonald and Martha McDonald Goupit; and by a son-in-law and grandson, Patrick and Max Goupit. He is also survived by the families of his step-children, Will Carlin, Mercer Carlin, and Alison Carlin Carrabba.
An active Episcopalian, John served on the vestry of Grace Church, Brooklyn Heights, until his death. The church was filled for a memorial service on January 25. The Rev. Pamela Brownlow Bakal, former associate rector of Grace, delivered the homily.
The homily and seven tributes attested to John’s passion for the theater, love of dancing, lust for life, fine sense of humor, gentle manner, special grace, and generosity. These tributes were delivered by Kate Stutt Brewer, a “favorite young friend”; by Benjamin F. Crane, a friend and longtime neighbor in Brooklyn Heights; by Margot Harley, founder of The Acting Company and artistic director there; by Patricia Shean Kelley, a much-loved cousin; by Maeve Kenny Solberg, a “second daughter”; by his daughter; and by his widow.
David McDonald and Richard C. Yancey, a long-time friend, read from Scripture. Musical selections were performed by Paul Olson, Grace Church organist, and Harriet Wohlgemuth, flutist and long-time friend. Matthew Dresher was acolyte. Ushers included John’s son-in-law and his stepson; his cousins Thomas, Brian, and Owen Shean; Ed Ross and Ellen Newman, lay leaders at Grace; and Thomas Chittenden, a member of the New England Society.
William H. Hazen
1931–2001
William H. Hazen died Friday, October 5, at New York Hospital of complications following surgery.
Bill Hazen joined the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn in 1975 and served actively on the board of directors and on the entertainment and membership committees during the 1970s and ’80s. He also was a member of the New England Society in the City of New York and helped foster an era of cooperation between these two groups whose rivalry dates back more than a century.
Born in Salem, Massachusetts, on January 6, 1931, Bill attended public schools in Danvers before entering the class of 1952 at Bowdoin College. He was a member of Zeta Psi fraternity at Bowdoin, majored in government, and was a leading member of the college’s hockey team. He also attended the Harvard Law School, and was an active alumnus of both institutions. He served on Bowdoin’s board of trustees for many years, and in the 1980s he lead a capital fund campaign for the college, which had unprecedented success.
During the Korean War, Bill served as a naval officer with the U.S. Seventh Fleet. Subsequently he practiced law at a small firm before working for two years in the New York State Banking Department as assistant counsel and executive assistant to the superintendent of banks.
He joined the investment firm J. & W. Seligman & Co. in 1964 as in-house counsel, and became a general partner in 1969. He was named chief executive officer of Seligman Securities in 1981, and chief executive officer of Seligman Trust Company in 1983.
Bill served variously as member of the board of governors of the Brooklyn Heights Association, president of the board of trustees at Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims, and trustee of the environmental organization Trout Unlimited. A founder of the Grandparents’ Fund at Saint Ann’s School, he also established a scholarship at Bowdoin College for students from Saint Ann’s and other schools in Brooklyn.
Bill is survived by his wife of forty-two years, the former Judith Ettl of Montclair and Princeton; a sister Lois H. Hatch of Doswell, Virginia; two daughters, Cordelia H. Tappin of Malibu and Alexes Hazen of Brooklyn; and two grandchildren.
A memorial service was held on Wednesday, October 10, at Plymouth Church. The Rev. Sharon P. Blackburn, Senior Minister, officiated. Speakers included Brian Zeno, President of J. & W. Seligman and Co.; Bill Dana, representing the Anglers Club of New York, Montana Land Reliance, and Brodhead Flyfishers; and Barry Mills, President of Bowdoin College. Remembrances also were delivered by his daughters, by friends Mary Anne and Dick Yancey, and by Narcissa Titman, who read remarks prepared by his widow.
Choral music was provided by the Plymouth Church Choir, led by Peter Stoltzfus, Minister of Music and organist. Ushers included David Blackburn and Otis Pearsall, present and former members of the New England Society, as well as Bob Bartley, John Herzog, John Titman, and Jim Waechter. Interment was in a family plot at Pine Hill Cemetery in Dover, New Hampshire.
Everett Lawrence Minard Ill
1949–2001
Lawrence Minard died Thursday, August 2, on Mount Rainier in Washington State while on a climbing expedition which included one of his daughters. On a steep slope at an elevation of 12,000 feet, he developed trouble breathing, sat down to rest, and became unconscious. Despite attempts to revive him on the mountain and at a hospital to which he was taken by helicopter, he did not regain consciousness.
A member of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn since 1988, he served on the Society’s board of directors at the time of his death.
Everett Lawrence Minard III was born in Seattle, November 19, 1949. Known to a wide circle of friends as Laury, he attended school in Washington State before entering Trinity College, Hartford, where he earned a BA. He then studied economics at the New School in New York City.
Founding editor of Forbes Global Magazine, Laury joined Forbes Magazine as a reporter/researcher in 1974. At Forbes he served as European bureau chief, based in London, and as West Coast Asia bureau chief, based in Los Angeles. He was Assistant Managing Editor of Forbes Magazine from October 1985 until January 1987, when he was promoted to Deputy Managing Editor. Two and a half years later he was appointed Managing Editor. He became founding editor of Forbes Global in September 1997.
Laury won the 1977 Gerald Loeb Award, together with David Warsh, for the article, “Inflation Is Now Too Serious to Leave to the Economists.” In 1999 and again in 2000 he won a London “Business Journalist of the Year” award for two articles: one on the restructuring of a German electric utility conglomerate, and the other on a Spanish telecommunications entrepreneur. Steve Forbes, president of Forbes, Inc., said that Laury’s “… extraordinary intellect, unflagging energy, insatiable curiosity and impressive knowledge of business here and abroad made him a superb reporter and editor.” James Grant, editor of Grant’s Interest Rate Observer, described Minard as “that rarest of financial journalists … [who] not only chronicled events, but chronicled them exceptionally well … [and developed an early understanding of the promise] of cellular and cable technologies.”
Laury was an experienced mountain climber, skier, and sailor. At the Heights Casino he was known as a vigorous squash player. He was also secretary of the Rembrandt Club, where his wit earned him an enduring reputation.
Laury is survived by his wife Elizabeth Bailey Minard, and by two daughters Sara and Julia, of Brooklyn. He also is survived by his parents Nancy and Everett Lawrence II and a brother Frank of Seattle, a brother Michael of Prague, and a grandmother Marguerite Minard of Wenatchee, Washington.
On August 10, a memorial service was held in Manhattan at Trinity Church, Wall Street, because of construction at Grace Church in Brooklyn Heights where Laury was a member. The Rev. Nils Blatz, Rector of Grace Church, delivered the homily, and Paul Olson, organist at Grace, played music, some of which was selected by Laury’s daughters. The service included the reading of Scripture by Michael J. Malone of Seattle, and the reading by William Baldwin, editor of Forbes, of a note from Laury’s mentor and subsequent colleague at Forbes, James W. Michaels. It also included remembrances by Steve Forbes; Stephen Fink of Boston, Laury’s college roommate; and William McDonough, Jr. of Summit, longtime friend and former neighbor. Laury was cremated and his ashes will be buried in Washington State.
Charles P. Stanton
1935–2001
Charles P. Stanton died Tuesday, February 27, at New York Hospital following a long illness. He had suffered from diabetes and heart problems.
A member of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn since 1987, Charles Stanton included genealogy among his interests, and traced his New England antecedents and those of his wife to Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. As a child he spent summers in Uxbridge, Massachusetts.
Born December 27, 1935, in Zurich, Switzerland, Charlie was raised in Great Neck and attended Cornell University, where he sang in the Cornell Glee Club and was manager of the varsity crew. He graduated from Cornell in 1957. Subsequently he received graduate degrees in law from Columbia University and in business from New York University. He was a life-long supporter of the Cornell Glee Club, and he served in various Cornell University alumni groups. During the 1980s he was alumni class president for several years.
Charles Stanton was a vice-president of J.P. Morgan from 1963 to 1984. He was president of Pratt and Company, a private banking company, from 1988 until his retirement in 2000. He was a member of the American Bar Association and the Bar Association of the City of New York.
Charlie was very active in the life of Grace Church in Brooklyn Heights. He sang as a tenor in the choir and he served in various lay leadership positions, including vestryman, treasurer, and clerk of the vestry. Also, for many years he sang in Gilbert and Sullivan operetta productions by the Blue Hill Troupe of New York City.
Charlie is survived by his wife of thirty-one years, the former Julia Duke Henning of Louisville, executive director of the Brooklyn Heights Association. He is also survived by his daughters Julia of Brooklyn Heights, and Charlotte of Cape Town, South Africa, and a brother Peter of Santa Fe.
A memorial service at Grace Church was conducted on Saturday, March 10, by The Rev. Nils Blatz, Rector, who delivered the homily. Later his ashes were the first to be inurned in Grace Church’s new columbarium. A tribute was delivered by Paul Noble, a classmate of Charlie’s at Cornell. Passages from Scripture were read by Charlie’s law school classmate Richard Scribner, by his brother Peter Stanton, by his Paris roommate Boynton Rawlings, by Cornell crew teammate Clayton Chapman, and by Brooklyn Heights neighbor Giles Mellon. Prayers were offered by Deborah Schenk, Senior Warden at Grace, and Thomas Chittenden, New England Society member and Charlie’s successor as clerk of the Grace Church vestry.
The memorial service was notable for its music, which included violin solos performed by Michael Roth. Singing during the service were the Grace Church Choir, Paul Olsen, Director, and the Cornell University Glee Club under Scott Tucker, Director. Ushers were Robert Belknap, Patrick Owen Bums, Richard Eckfeldt, and John Gilbert, all present or former members and directors of the New England Society.
Florence Guild Nixon
1915–2000
Florence Guild Nixon, longtime resident, businesswoman, and civic activist from Brooklyn Heights, died at age 85 on Monday, July 31 at her home on Hicks Street. She had been a member of the New England Society in the City of Brooklyn since women joined several years ago.
Born in Boston on June 29, 1915, a direct descendant of Miles Standish, the daughter of Florence M. Catulle and William Guild, Florence Guild grew up in the Boston area. In 1938, she married Russell A. Nixon, an economist who taught at MIT, Harvard, NYU, and was a professor at Columbia University when he died in 1973.
Florence Guild Nixon graduated from George Washington University with a degree in economics, and later also received a BA degree in fine arts from Pratt Institute, Brooklyn. Russell and Florence Nixon moved to Brooklyn Heights in the early 1950s.
After working for eight years in advertising with Filene’s of Boston and then with the Federal Reserve, Florence Nixon started her own business, Florence Guild, Inc. Interior Design. She designed interiors of houses in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and California as well as 39 houses on Fire Island, where the Nixons owned two buildings. Florence Guild also did design work in Costa Rica.
Florence Nixon was active in a number of Brooklyn and national societies. At the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, she was known as the Violet Lady because of her interest in flowers. Betty Scholtz, director emeritus of the BBG, said, “Florence Nixon was always cheerful, energetic, eager to help, but was never a shrinking violet.”
In addition to her membership in the New England Society, Florence Nixon was an active member of the Brooklyn Music School, where she served on the board of trustees for a number of years. She was also active in the Brooklyn Heights Association, the New York Decorators Club, the Victorian Society, and the Society of Mayflower Descendants. For many years, she was a member and treasurer of the Linnaen Society. She had traveled extensively both in the United States and around the world.
She is survived by cousins and numerous friends. Family members who are arranging the service for their cousin have requested donations, in memory of Florence Guild Nixon, in lieu of flowers, be sent to either Brooklyn Botanic Garden or Brooklyn Music School.
A memorial service will be held Tuesday, September 19 at 1 p.m., at Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims, Orange Street between Hicks and Henry Streets, Brooklyn Heights.