Deceased May 12, 2018
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In Memory
John Waterman died in Rhode Island in May. He was 89. John was a man of three passions: his family, serving others and tending to his Colonial (1698) home in Rehoboth, Mass.
John was born in 1929 and raised in Providence, R.I. He came to Amherst in the fall of 1947 after having graduated from Choate (now Choate Rosemary Hall), where he was a member of the crew. At Amherst he majored in political science, was a member of Chi Phi fraternity and was a founding member of Amherst’s original crew. Following Amherst, John, like most of us, went into the service for the Korean War; John served in the Navy on the aircraft carrier USS Boxer.
After his discharge, John worked for J. Walter Thompson, the global advertising firm, in New York City, and while in New York worked for the Amherst capital campaign. In 1961 he married his first wife, Paula Johnson Waterman, with whom he had two children: a son, Jay, and a daughter, Caroline. In the early 1960s, John and Paula moved to Rehoboth, Mass., and John lived there for the next 46 years, tending a 10-acre gentleman’s farm and an old Colonial house. John’s first marriage ended in divorce, as did his second marriage, to Jean Palumbo.
Following his retirement, John turned to volunteer work. He served his church and his local community, most notably with the Samaritans suicide prevention hotline. He loved to sail (mostly with his sister and brother-in-law) and loved the history of the sea. This led him to collect old prints of clipper ships and the histories of their voyages.
John was a kind and considerate gentleman. We shall miss him.
Van Tingley ’51 and Jay Waterman