Deceased August 7, 2013
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In Memory
Right now I’m looking at a 65-year-old picture of four young men, dressed in jeans and sweatshirts, loosely draped over chairs on the front portico of the Phi Alpha Psi house: Henry Paige, Dempwolf Frey, Jay Tiffin and Paul Cooney. We hardly knew each other when we pledged as freshmen, but by junior year we had moved into the fraternity house and become roommates assigned to a “study room” on the second floor and sleeping accommodations on the third floor. Today such rooms would make an Amherst junior flee to the luxury of a Williams private suite.
Just how this forced “marriage” came about is lost in the mists of memory, but we four became lifelong friends. I attended Henry’s wedding to Ginny Lyons in 1955 and was best man at Jay’s wedding. Dempy was my best man. We visited each other through the years and at several reunions.
After Amherst, Henry went to Columbia Law School, was a naval officer and had a long career as an attorney. At the time of his retirement in 1993, he was deputy general counsel of Atlantic Richfield Corp. in Los Angeles. He and Ginny had two children, Matt and Ginger.
Henry was a rather saucy fellow—only he wore a bow tie for our senior picture. And he had a wonderful sense of humor: a pungent quip, a sardonic observation or just a very funny comment. These were always followed by a broad smile and a warm chuckle. He kept his sense of humor and appreciation of the sardonic even during chemotherapy and into the final days of his life. I will keep his wonderful smile in my heart.
Paul Cooney ’50