Deceased January 21, 2017
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In Memory
Allan Oxx passed away unexpectedly in his Longmeadow, Mass., home on Jan. 21, 2017. He is survived by my mother and his wife of 26 years, Susan Dudley-Oxx; and two daughters, my younger sister, Kathryn, and me.
My dad arrived at Amherst later in life after several detours. In the 10-plus years between his graduation from Lutheran High on Long Island and matriculation at Amherst College, he hitchhiked across the country with friends, rented a semi-weatherproof “shack” in a neighbor’s backyard and spent six years sailing around the world with the U.S. Navy. While others in his class complained about dining at Valentine, my dad was grateful to have a consistent free meal and access to enough oranges to learn how to juggle in his dorm room. He also devoured the opportunity to learn alongside some tremendous professors, including a few who were close to his own age.
Like so many other political science grads, after graduation my dad moved to New York, where he found his first suit-and-tie job with Shoeman, Marsh, Updike, and Welt. After a few years in the city, he moved back to Western Massachusetts, started work with Travelers Insurance, enrolled in law school at Western New England, married my mother, started our family and took ownership of the first Saturday tee-time at St. Anne’s Golf Course with his longtime foursome Tom, Dave and Paul.
For more than 25 years he continued to work in insurance law, most recently for the Hartford; to golf each Saturday (at least) with his friends; and, in his words, to “live vicariously” through his children as we graduated from high school and college and started to navigate adulthood. After an unconventional start, he found his comfort and purpose in our tight-knit family life.
Lindsay Oxx ’14