Deceased January 24, 2011
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In Memory
I met Charlie in 1951 playing “pick-up” basketball in the Amherst gym. It was at Vance AFB in Oklahoma in pilot training that I really got to know him. On weekends, we drove to Lawrence, Kan., to visit his sister, Sue, at KU. Bob Riggs sometimes went with us. After we got our wings, Charlie went to Forbes AFB in Topeka, Kan.; I went to Westover in Massachusetts.
In 1959, Charlie worked at Chase Bank in New York City with me. In the fall of 1960, he left to teach English at Blair Academy in Blairstown, N.J. We were in summer group houses together at the Jersey shore.
Charlie married Lois Parkhurst in ’62, and they bought a house in Bay Head, N.J. Their daughter, Lesley, was born in 1971. My wife and I and mutual friends attended many parties hosted by the Underwoods at Blair and in Bay Head.
In the late 1970s, the Underwoods started spending summers on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire before purchasing a home on Bear Island.
Charlie taught at Blair for 38 years and was English department chairman for 14 years, dorm master for 20 years and varsity baseball and soccer coach. He and Lois retired to Concord, N.H., in 1998.
Last June, his former students raised $100,000 to name the new soccer field, Underwood Field, in his honor. Blair’s headmaster praised Charlie as “not just a teacher but a true schoolmaster.” That weekend they visited us in New York City—it was the last time we saw Charlie. In October, he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and following chemo treatments, he developed pneumonia and died in Concord Hospital on Jan. 24.
Over the years, our families traveled and spent holidays together. In retrospect, Charlie was like a brother to me. I loved him and miss him.
John A. Marion ’55