The deadline for the print version of these notes means that several interesting events will already have occurred before you read this edition of the alumni magazine, including, in October, a Zoom call with Dick Maltby and Dave Shire about their new show (first presented at our 65th reunion) and its journey to New York; another Zoom involving WYBC alumni; and a presentation by Winston Lord at the Asia Society in New York about our relations now and going forward with China, where he served as ambassador under Ronald Reagan. More on all this good stuff next time. Our secretary, Ed Greenberg, remains as always in the market for ideas for future Zooms, which are not hard to arrange technologically and have yielded much wisdom and lively conversation in the past. He can be reached at the email above or (203) 253-6412. Ed reports that the class leadership remains on solid footing, with Charlie Nolan stepping forward to succeed Jim Sheffield as 1959 chair of class agents, Charles Griffith representing us at Yale convocations, and Al Atherton keeping us solvent as class treasurer.
Mr. Atherton, meanwhile, was among the guests at the Griffiths’ tailgate at Yale’s opening game at the Bowl, arranged for the umpteenth year by the creative and ageless Bobbi Griffith, this time including Hugo Krantz from our class, Carl Lindskog and Richie and Harriet Case from ’58, Judith DeCoster from ’91, and an assortment of local pals. The food was great, ditto the weather and the game’s result, a Yale win.
Fred Cowles writes from Nantucket, where he retired in the late ’90s after a busy career as an international lawyer, mainly with Colgate in New York City. He said he misses our long-ago Ben Gertz–arranged class lunches at the Yale Club, as do I. His old Silliman roommate, Dan Schweikert, a widower, dropped in with his significant other, Libby, and stayed for three days en route to Morocco. Fred and his wife Tina are still active, celebrated their 64th anniversary in September, and see their four sons and families every summer. “A good life,” he writes, “if you stay reasonably healthy.” Not an issue there for the indefatigable Craig Llewellyn, who in the past year has bombed around with wife Gail to Vermont, Colorado, New York, the Panama Canal, and Spain, pausing in April to catch drinks and a lecture by Charlie Ellis before the Yale Club of the Palm Beaches, near his home in West Palm.
I was just about to wrap up these short notes when my wife alerted me to a long obit in the Times on September 21 for Al Youngwood, written by his affectionate and admiring colleagues at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, where Al was something of a superstar over the years, serving as chairman in the late 1990s and, when he was not running the place, as the firm’s premier tax expert. Al worked with me on the Yale Daily News; he went on to Harvard Law School, where he met his wife Judith, about whom he wrote affectionately in our 50th reunion book and who predeceased him in 2008. He is survived by his wife Patricia and two sons. His memorial was held on September 21 at Central Synagogue on Lexington Avenue, where he served as president.
Two other departures (much more detail on the class website). Dick Hearn passed away peacefully in Burlington, Vermont, on July 10. Born in Hartford, he spent time between his freshman and sophomore years in the US Navy, later earned an MBA at MIT, and spent most of his career as a management consultant, including stints at Raytheon and the defense department. He married four times, leaving behind his latest wife, Sybil, five daughters from earlier unions, and multiple stepchildren.
Jim Ayer, who died in August after a fall near his home in Marblehead, Massachusetts, was another classmate who interrupted his Yale education to serve in the armed forces, in his case in Germany. Jim was born in 1933, went to Eaglebrook and Taft, and graduated with us in 1959 with a degree in mechanical engineering. He worked for Ingersoll Milling in Rockford, Illinois, and raised three children with his then-wife, Julia, in the Midwest, where his main hobby was sailing. He moved to Marblehead in 1979, where he sailed some more and where he created his own business, JV Ayer and Co., which created high-tech wooden jigsaw puzzles using computer technology. I am told they are still around. He is survived by his wife, Elizabeth, his three children, and one stepson.
That’s it for now. I forswore political comment in this space years ago, but am very pleased to say that Yale has managed to stay out of the administration’s crosshairs on matters of academic freedom and scientific research, though the tax on endowments will hurt.