Deceased July 14, 2007

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In Memory

George Keith died on July 14, 2007, from lung cancer.

George was born in Boston, MA, on May 16, 1936, to George Eldon ’27 and Helen Louise (Pruet) Keith.  He prepared for Amherst at Milton Academy.  A physics major at Amherst, he earned his “1958” in soccer, was a member of Chi Phi, where he was house manager, was in the Glee Club, and was technical director at WAMH.  Gordy Groff remembers George as being quiet and private but very kind and caring, a person who would do anything for you.  Ross Bassett remembers George the same way, saying he was “a very decent guy, who didn’t say a bad word about anybody.” George had a lifelong interest in music.  Lou Eastman recalls that he played the organ and would listen to recordings of performances by Albert Schweitzer.  Indeed, Gordy says that he was a consummate expert at the organ and that whenever George would go to Johnson Chapel to practice, he (Gordy) would follow along just for the sheer joy of listening.

Another of George’s activities at Amherst was running a birthday cake service.  George advertised the service to the parents of students, the parents would order the cake, and George would arrange for the baking and do the delivering.  According to Gordy, George would store the cakes prior to delivery under the bed in his room at Chi Phi, a practice that once led to disaster.  One day, Gordy, Ross Bassett, and a third person were roughhousing in the room and landed on George’s bed and broke it so that it ended up on the floor.  Unfortunately, there were cakes underneath, which were utterly destroyed.  George, upon his return, was completely distraught.  After that, he stored the cakes elsewhere.  (Actually, I remember the cake service.  My parents had ordered one for my birthday, December 17, but it did not arrive when promised.  After the Christmas vacation, my roommate, Jim Karet, was asked if I still wanted a cake, to which he gave an emphatic “no.”  I wonder if my original cake was one of those that had been destroyed in the roughhousing.)

After Amherst, George went on to MIT, where he received a masters and another advanced degree in electrical engineering in 1962.  He worked in the engineering field until his retirement in May of 2007.  For the last twelve years, he was a software engineer at Electronics for Imaging in Parsippany, NJ, and for over thirty years before that worked as an electrical engineer doing computer hardware design at Singer Kearfott in Totowa, NJ.  George was a member of Tau Beta Pi, the engineering honor society.

George was a longtime member of the First Congregational Church of Verona, NJ, having served in the choir and as president and treasurer of the congregation.  He was also active in the Boy Scouts; he was a member of BSA Troop 1 of North Caldwell, NJ, and was the father of two Eagle Scouts.  He had a lifelong interest in baseball and in bridge.  In addition, a great interest was the far northern parts of the earth, and he traveled there frequently, sometimes with his wife, Virginia, and sometimes alone.  He had a particular fascination with Greenland.  A few years back, co-class secretary Art Powell asked what it was about Greenland that attracted him so much, and he said, “It’s different.  I like it.  It is sparsely populated, and it has lots of ice, pretty mountains, and Viking ruins.”

George is survived by his wife, Virginia L. Keith (a Mount Holyoke graduate whom George dated while at Amherst); his mother, Helen P. Keith; his sons, Andrew G. Keith and Jonathan E. Keith and their wives; a sister, Priscilla K. Kirby; and five grandsons.  To these, the Class extends its condolences.  Services were held at the First Congregational Church of Verona on July 21, 2007.

John E. G. Bischof ’58