Deceased July 9, 2016
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In Memory
Ken Crittenden passed away on July 9 at a care facility where he had been for some time. Ken was the son of Raymond Edward Crittenden and Marjorie Fraley, born in Greenfield, Mass., Nov. 1, 1920. He attended high school in Glen Ridge, N.J. At Amherst he was a member of Phi Gamma Delta, worked on the Amherst Student all four years (news editor in the fourth), and served in fraternity business management (third and fourth year). Following college Ken signed up for the navy’s V-7 program and then graduated from the midshipmen’s school in Chicago. Active service was with the destroyer Mahan and the destroyer John W. Weeks, both in the Pacific.
Right after his Amherst graduation Ken had married Virginia Dessar, Mt. Holyoke ’42, and eventually they had three children, Dick, Carol and Gail, with grandchildren to follow. He had some further education at UMass and the Yale School of Forestry and a variety of jobs before he and his wife gave in to their love of the west and decisively moved to California, first near Monterey, and ultimately in Palo Alto, where he worked for Pacific Bell for 36 years. He was a customer service manager.
Recreation was in their outdoor activities, traveling and camping all over the West, two raft trips down the Grand Canyon and one down the Fraser River in Canada, and whale watches in Baja, Calif. They also had a rustic summer cabin on a lake in the High Sierra. Retiring in 1982, Ken was never afraid that he would be unable to find enjoyable things to do in retirement.
Richard Ward ’42