Deceased October 29, 2017
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In Memory
John was a family man first and foremost. His advice was sound, supportive and given with his trademark wit. That loving, dry sense of humor was in full force right up until the last few days of his life. His passions for hiking, boating and friendship are ingrained in all of his family. He was the salt of the earth, an old-school gentleman and true to his word … always. John died Oct. 29 in Connecticut Hospice: “No pain and no dementia, for which we were grateful,” writes Joan, his wife of 63 years.
After a brief spell in the Midwest, they chose a happy lifelong residence in Guilford, Conn. John sold insurance and real estate before commuting to Hartford to sell municipal bonds at Hartford National Bank. For more than 40 years John had a series of boats docked at the Guilford marina, whence they all fished and swam in Long Island Sound. He and Joan traveled throughout the western states and Europe during the ’80s and ’90s, but a special fraternal mobility was described by John at his 50th Amherst reunion: “Several years ago I was invited to join a retired—male only—hiking group that hikes the Blue Trails of Connecticut every Wednesday all year, with only heavy rain canceling a hike. Occasionally we stray a bit—we have hiked in Staten Island, downtown Manhattan …, taken the cliff walk in front of the great mansions in Newport, R. I., and once a year hike a short distance on the Appalachian Trail in northwest Connecticut, crossing into New York and Massachusetts the same day.” Frank discussion among this fraternal group covered a lot of ground too.
Joan generously shared several documents with me for this In Memory piece for the magazine, which, Joan adds, “we always fought over when it arrived!”
Edge Quaintance ’50