Deceased August 18, 2018
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In Memory
I first became friendly with Van our freshman year playing lacrosse on the first post-World War II team at Amherst. Van played defense and always claimed that I, playing attack, broke his nose in a scrimmage, which, he admitted, could possibly have been partially his fault for not wearing a helmet. Van was a Chi Phi in the good old days at the College.
After Amherst, Harvard Business School and the military, Van worked, very successfully, as a management consultant and as such lived in Larchmont, N.Y., from 1968 to 1995. While in New York, he was a devoted attendee of our well-publicized annual 1951 dinners in the city.
As was reported by Lu, Van was an avid and expert skier with whom I had the pleasure of skiing both at Sugarbush and Tignes, France, with Lu; my wife, Joan; and an Amherst group led by the legendary alumni secretary, Fred Gardner ’49. In addition to the skiing, we had the good fortune to spend several extra days in Paris as guests of Air France as a result of the infamous air traffickers’ strike, during which time Van and Lu, who had family in Paris, took us to all of the best- and little-known bistros and the like.
I refer those who have not already read it to Lu’s aforementioned notice to the class for additional details of his life and death, such as his love of sailing and tennis.
For the last several years, Joan and I shared annual lobster dinners with Lu and Van during our visits to Maine. At our last dinner this past June, we had been invited to stay at their home in Yarmouth next year.
Our thoughts are with Lu, Sam and Perrin.
Gary Holman ’51