1950s
Alfred Herbert Elsesser ’50
Alfred Herbert Elsesser ’50, born on February 17, 1929, in Elizabeth, NJ, grew up in that city. A son of Albert M., a stockbroker, and Grace Kennedy Elsesser, a school teacher, he prepared for college at Pingry School in Elizabeth and came to Hamilton following his graduation in 1946. Al Elsesser joined the Emerson Literary Society and participated actively in the religious life of the campus as a member and secretary of the Chapel Board. He also contributed his time to The Hamiltonian, which credited him with “a characteristic patience and efficiency.” A persuasively logical voice for conservative tradition in bull sessions, he majored in English literature and philosophy, and was graduated with honors in philosophy in 1950.
The College has no information on Alfred H. Elsesser’s subsequent activities, except that he returned to his native New Jersey, where he apparently pursued a religious calling as a minister, which had long been his desire. As verified by Social Security records, he was residing in Hillside, NJ, when he died on August 2, 2008.
Frederick Dietrich Rosenberg ’50
Frederick Dietrich Rosenberg ’50, a lawyer who practiced in the U.S. Virgin Islands for 20 years, was born on February 9, 1925, in Emden, Germany. A son of Dietrich F.J. and Gretchen Siebels Rosenberg, he was 4 years old when his parents, seeking a better life, emigrated to this country. Unfortunately, they arrived in New York City on the steamship Deutschland in August 1929, just before the stock market crash and the ensuing Great Depression. The Rosenbergs initially settled in rural Iowa but their economic situation soon prompted them to move to Binghamton, NY, where Fred Rosenberg’s father obtained a job in the nearby Agfa-Ansco plant, which was partly German-owned. Fred grew up in Binghamton, where he was graduated in 1943 from Binghamton North High School.
After U.S. entry into World War II, however, the Rosenbergs were considered enemy aliens and Fred’s father lost his job. At first the Rosenberg sons were not allowed into military service, but in 1943 the military had a change of heart, or at least policy, and Fred was drafted into the Army. He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1945, while in the service, and at the war’s end was stationed in Germany with the Signal Corps. Discharged as a staff sergeant in 1946, he entered Hamilton that fall and joined Delta Upsilon. He greatly enjoyed fraternity life and forever remained an enthusiastic supporter of the traditional fraternity system.
After two years on the Hill, Fred Rosenberg, who “knew” he wanted to be a lawyer by the time he was in the fifth grade, withdrew from the College to enroll in Duke University’s School of Law. He earned his LL.B. degree there in 1951. Before returning to Binghamton to practice law in the late 1950s, he served on Capitol Hill as assistant counsel to the House subcommittee on education and labor. In Binghamton, he became a partner in the firm of Tanenhaus, Cassada & Rosenberg as well as an attorney for Broome County’s tax division.
When Fred and his wife Pat, the former Patricia A. Young, whom he had married in 1952, visited the Virgin Islands, they both promptly fell in love with the place. In 1966, when Fred was invited to join a local law firm, Bailey & Wood, the Rosenbergs and their six children left Binghamton and moved to the islands to take up residence in St. Thomas. Named a partner, Fred continued to practice law with the firm of Bailey, Wood & Rosenberg until his retirement in 1986.
A past president of the Virgin Islands Bar Association (he was then one of 43 lawyers on the islands), Fred Rosenberg also served on the Board of Governors of the St. Thomas Yacht Club and the Frederick Lutheran Church Council as well as chairing the board of its parish school. After Fred’s retirement, the Rosenbergs moved to Englewood, FL, where he enjoyed fishing, boating, and observing the birds and wildlife along the Gulf of Mexico. In 2000, he and Pat moved to Brevard, NC, to be near their daughters.
Frederick D. Rosenberg was still residing in Brevard when he died on February 4, 2010. Predeceased by his wife, he is survived by four daughters, Gretchen Brown, Erika Reinke, Ilse Kirchoff, and Katrin Rosenberg; two sons, Christian F. and Frederick D. Rosenberg, Jr.; and eight grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and two brothers.
Harry James Thornton ’50
Harry James Thornton ’50, a retired sales representative, was born on May 13, 1927, in Troy, NY. A son of Harry E., an insurance agent, and Mary Ryan Thornton, he was graduated in 1945 from Mount Pleasant High School in Schenectady. After briefly serving in the U.S. Marine Corps at the end of World War II and taking courses at Champlain College, he came to Hamilton from Schenectady in 1948. On the Hill he became a fullback on the varsity football team as well as its co-captain. A member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, he was awarded his A.B. degree in 1951.
In subsequent years Harry Thornton was employed as a sales and manufacturer’s marketing representative in Boston and New York City. A resident of West Simsbury and later Avon ,CT, his favorite hobby was the restoration of classic cars, and he particularly enjoyed spending summers at his log cabin retreat on Lake Luzerne in the Adirondacks.
Harry J. Thornton was residing on St. Simons Island, GA, when he died at his home on March 25, 2010. He is survived by his wife, Margaret (Peggy) MacNiven Thornton; a son, Thomas D. Thornton; two daughters, Colleen Cofaro and Linda Smith; and seven grandchildren and a sister and a brother.
Colin MacLachlan ’51
Colin MacLachlan ’51, a retired public relations executive, grew up on Long Island, where he was born in Oceanside on January 2, 1930. He was the son of Clarence H. MacLachlan, owner and editor of The Long-Islander, a weekly newspaper founded in 1838 by the poet Walt Whitman, and the former Marie R Kranz. Colin MacLachlan attended Huntington (NY) High School and prepared for college at Friends Academy in Locust Valley. He came to Hamilton from Huntington in 1947 and joined Chi Psi. A member of the varsity swimming team, he remained on the Hill for two years.
Colin Maclachlan subsequently transferred to Reed College, where he earned his B.A. degree in 1952. After serving in the U.S. Army, he was a city hall reporter for the Baltimore Evening Sun and a news editor for his father’s paper, The Long-Islander. In 1960, he became an account executive for the Manhattan-based advertising firm of Bozell & Jacobs. He was public relations director for Continental Can Co. in 1968 when he joined the international public relations counseling firm of Hill & Knowlton, headquartered in New York City.
At Hill & Knowlton, Colin MacLachlan became a group director, and his corporate clients included electric and gas utility companies, accounting firms, and the motion picture industry. He also headed the committee that produced and aired the first television commercials for Alcoholics Anonymous. In 1971, he was named a vice president of the company, and he retired as senior vice president after 20 years with Hill & Knowlton in 1988.
Colin MacLachlan, a resident for the past decade of the retirement community of Broadmead in Cockeysville, MD, was an avid hiker, fly fisherman, and golfer. He was also supportive of Hamilton. He died on July 30, 2010, in Cockeysville, of complications from Parkinson’s disease. Surviving are two sons, Colin A. and Charles D. MacLachlan; a daughter, Helen C. MacLachlan; and a granddaughter.
Omar Shakespear Pound ’51
Omar Shakespear Pound ’51. In its memorial tribute to him, The Times of London aptly described Omar Pound as “a gifted poet and an internationally recognized translator of Persian and Arabic poetry,” to which, it added, he brought “verbal dexterity, historical sense and sensibility, a keen eye for cultural detail, and an impish play of song.” A teacher, literary scholar, and editor as well, he will also be remembered on College Hill for his cultural benefactions to his alma mater.
The son of the pioneering modernist poet Ezra Pound, Class of 1905, and the former Dorothy Shakespear, Omar Pound was born on September 10, 1926, in Paris, France. He grew up in England, his mother’s native land, and attended Charterhouse School in Surrey. During World War II he survived the German bombing of London, and in 1945 he enlisted in the U.S. Army. Demobilized after the war’s end in 1946, following service in the Infantry in France and occupied Germany, he came to Hamilton in the summer of 1947, joined the Emerson Literary Society as well as the Chess Club, and sang in the Choir.
After two years on the Hill, Omar Pound again went abroad, for a highly instructive three years. The first was spent at the University of Grenoble, improving his French. The second saw him enrolled at the London School of Oriental Studies, beginning his immersion into Persian history, literature, and (as he confided in a letter to his College Hill friends, Dean and Mrs. Arthur Percy Saunders), “of course, Persian poetry.” The third year found him in Iran, at the University of Tehran, coping with the Persian language as well as its literature.
After completing his Hamilton studies and acquiring his A.B. degree in 1954, Omar Pound went on to study Arabic literature at McGill University in Montreal. There he met Elizabeth S. Parkin, and they were married in that city on May 14, 1955. In 1958, while teaching English at the historic Roxbury Latin School in Boston, MA, he acquired his M.A. from McGill’s Institute of Islamic Studies. In 1962, after five years on the faculty of Roxbury Latin, he was appointed headmaster of the American School of Tangier in Morocco.
Three years later, the Pounds, with their two young daughters, settled in England, first in Dorset and later in Cambridge, where Omar became a lecturer at the Cambridgeshire College of Arts and Technology, a post he would retain for 13 years. In 1986, the Pounds again pulled up stakes and returned to this side of the Atlantic. They took up residence in Princeton, NJ, and Omar soon busied himself in scholarly and teaching pursuits, giving workshops on translating poetry and lecturing in English composition at Princeton University. In those years he also reknitted his ties to Hamilton, which he fondly remembered as the place where “I began reading and learned to enjoy music (especially choral).”
Ever the prodigious scholar, Omar Pound was much more than a mere translator of verses. His Arabic and Persian Poems (1970) were lyric adaptations of the originals in which he succeeded admirably in his aim of not only rendering the verses readable in English but also “lending to them the aura of discovery.” That success was also evident in his inspired version of the 14th-century Persian satirical fable Gorby and the Rats (1972).
Omar Pound’s own poetry was published in several volumes, including The Dying Sorcerer and Other Poems (1985), Pissle and the Holy Grail (1987), Poems Inside and Out (1999), and Watching the Worlds Go By (2001). As a bibliographer, he also compiled Wyndham Lewis: A Descriptive Bibliography (1978), focused on the works of his father’s friend, the artist and writer Wyndham Lewis. Later in life, after his retirement from teaching, he devoted much of his time to co-editing his parents’ letters. Ezra Pound and Dorothy Shakespear: Their Letters, 1909-1914, had been published in 1984. They were followed by Ezra and Dorothy Pound: Letters in Captivity, 1945-46, in 1999.
While residing in Princeton, Omar Pound often visited College Hill and took a particularly keen interest in the newly established Emerson Gallery as well as the Burke Library’s extensive Ezra Pound Collection, consisting of print materials as well as manuscripts, to which he contributed many items. He also served on the College’s Visual Arts Committee and added to the Emerson Gallery many works by his mother, an artist in her own right, as well as works by his father’s artist associates, such as Wyndham Lewis and Henri Gaudier-Brzeska. In recognition of his enthusiastic support of the Emerson Gallery, Omar’s name was placed on its “Wall of Honor” in 1995. That recognition he accepted with his characteristic modesty and grace.
Omar Pound, whose creative work was also recognized with an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Lawrence University in 1989, was known for his capaciousness of mind and generosity of spirit. He had a passion for facts, “the more obscure, the better,” and, wonderfully and charmingly eccentric, he both “amused and tormented” his family and friends with his puns, his whimsy, and his quirky humor.
In ill health in recent years, Omar Shakespear Pound died on March 2, 2010, in Princeton. In addition to his wife of 55 years, he is survived by his two daughters, Katherine and Oriana Pound, and two grandsons. They, as well as many of us on College Hill, will greatly miss him.
John Eugene Greenwood ’52
John Eugene Greenwood ’52, who retired as a district manager after more than 30 years with New York Telephone Co., grew up in Buffalo, NY, where he was born on August 23, 1930. The son of Eugene P., a tax consultant, and Agnes Erskine Greenwood, he prepared for college at the Nichols School in Buffalo and came to the Hill in 1948. John Greenwood, known as Jack, joined Delta Kappa Epsilon and went out for lacrosse, lettering in the sport. He also acted with the Charlatans and sang in the Choir. In 1950, after the outbreak of the Korean War, he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force. He left Hamilton in the midst of his junior year to go on active duty, became a radar technician, and served until 1952. He thereafter returned to the Hill to complete his course of study and receive his diploma in 1954.
By that time, Jack Greenwood had begun his career with New York Telephone in Glens Falls and later became manager in Oneida. He was on the commercial staff in Albany and the operational staff in New York City before settling in Saratoga Springs as manager from 1963 to 1968. He was manager of the company’s business office in Troy when appointed commercial results supervisor at its upstate headquarters in Albany in 1971. During his three decades with the company, he traveled extensively in connection with mechanization projects that he worked on. He retired as district manager in Albany in 1985.
For 23 years a resident of Saratoga Springs, Jack Greenwood was highly active in the community. He served as vice president of the Chamber of Commerce and was a director of the Development Corporation as well as a member of the Charter Revision Commission. He was also a trustee of the 1st Presbyterian Church . After his retirement, he moved to Cape Cod. Residing in West Chatham and Brewster, he became active in the Coast Guard Auxiliary and president of the Rotary Club. He also kept himself busy by studying accounting at Cape Cod Community College and working part-time in a clothing and a hardware store.
With his wife, the former Margaret Ives, a nurse whom he had wed on April 30, 1960, in Albany, Jack Greenwood very much enjoyed travel. They crisscrossed the country several times by train. They also had a condominium in Florida, where they enjoyed cruising in their 36’ boat.
John E. Greenwood, a faithfully supportive alumnus who was a part-time resident of Hobe Sound, FL, died on April 23, 2010, while hospitalized in nearby Stuart. Besides his wife of 50 years, he is survived by a daughter, Lisa E. Eastman; three sons, Peter J., Paul H., and James C. Greenwood; and five grandchildren and a great-granddaughter. He was previously wed, in 1954, to Mary B. Shanley.
Raymond Richard Murray ’52
Raymond Richard Murray ’52, a physician and medical educator, grew up in Pulaski, NY, a farming community south of Watertown, near Lake Ontario, where he was born on October 20, 1929. His parents were Raymond J. Murray, a salesman, and the former Mildred J. Trumble, a telephone operator. An Eagle Scout as a youth and a graduate of Pulaski Academy and Central School, “Dick” Murray enrolled at the College in 1948. He joined Psi Upsilon and, while pursuing premedical studies, was credited by The Hamiltonian with “giving his dynamic all to Hamilton’s athletic teams and sparking his fraternity and class in intramural and interclass competition.” Despite his comparatively small stature, he played varsity basketball and football in addition to baseball, lettering in the latter two. Elected to Was Los as well as vice president of the senior class, he was popular with his fellow students and the faculty alike.
Dick Murray went on to the State University of New York’s Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse following his graduation in 1952. On August 22, 1953, while he was in medical school, he and Barbara R. Jenne were married in Ithaca. Awarded his M.D. degree in 1956, he served his general internship at St. Francis Hospital in Hartford, CT, before entering the U.S. Air Force Medical Corps in 1957. He remained in uniform for two years, was stationed in Japan, and left the Air Force as a captain. He thereafter began his four-year residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Brooklyn Methodist Hospital.
In 1963, Dick Murray established his private practice in Ithaca, which he maintained for eight years. In 1972, after a year with the student health service at the University of Michigan, he accepted appointment as assistant clinical professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. While there he directed the state’s program to improve pregnancy outcomes and participated in several other statewide programs aimed at improving prenatal and infant health care.
In 1985, Dr. Murray moved to Anchorage, AK, where he went into private practice with the Alaska Women’s Health Service. He retired from clinical practice in 1989, and after obtaining a master’s degree in public health from San Diego State University in 1990, he returned to maternal and child health care work as associate professor and director of rural obstetrics at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. He held that post until his retirement.
Dick Murray, a kind and considerate as well as skilled physician, was known to forego on many occasions his professional fees from families in financial difficulty. Beyond his medical practice and teaching, he was active in the community as a youth sports official, especially in basketball and soccer. He enjoyed golf and skiing, and his favorite hobby was outdoor photography.
R. Richard Murray, a faithful alumnus, was residing in Albuquerque, NM, when he died on March 30, 2010. Divorced from his wife, who predeceased him, he is survived by two daughters, Jane E. Murray-Keeling and Judy E. Murray; a son, Stephen R. Murray; and 11 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
Edwin Lonsdale Collins, Jr. ’53
Edwin Lonsdale Collins, Jr. ’53, a lawyer and former insurance company executive, was born on September 28, 1931, the son of Edwin L., president and general manager of a fuel company, and Wilma Fernette Collins, a librarian, in Utica, NY. “Ted” Collins came up the Hill from New Hartford in 1949, following his graduation from New Hartford High School. He joined Theta Delta Chi as well as the track team, utilizing his 6' 4" height and 200 pounds in the shot put. His path through the College somewhat smoothed by the sympathetic ear and encouragement of Dean Winton Tolles, he was graduated in 1953.
Ted Collins attended law school at Cornell University for a time before transferring to Albany Law School. He obtained his LL.B. degree in 1958. On February 28 of that year, in Albany, he was married to Sally Ann Milner. The couple settled in the Albany suburb of Delmar, and in 1960 Ted joined the Farm Family Mutual Insurance Co. in nearby Glenmont as its home office claim examiner. Named assistant claim manager in 1965 and assistant counsel in 1968, he was promoted to claim manager as well as assistant counsel in 1970. He took charge of all the claim operations for Farm Family, which provided casualty insurance for Farm Bureau members throughout the Northeast and down to Delaware and West Virginia.
Later appointed senior vice president and general counsel of the company, Ted Collins continued to reside in Delmar, where he was active in the Kiwanis Club and served as its president. He enjoyed collecting antiques, and one of his favorite pleasures was dining out.
The College has only recently learned that Edwin L. Collins, Jr. died on April 11, 2009, at a nursing home in East Greenbush, NY, where he last resided. Predeceased by his wife and a daughter, Abbeyleix Collins, he is survived by three sons, Edwin L. III, Christopher H., and Matthew M. Collins, and a granddaughter.
Samuel Richard Schulman ’56
Samuel Richard Schulman ’56, professor emeritus of modern languages at Central Connecticut State University, was born on May 29, 1934, in the Bronx, NY. The only child of Frederick J., a factory worker, and Anna Katz Schulman, a clerk-typist, he grew up in modest circumstances in the Bronx and in Brooklyn, where he attended James Madison High School. Early on in high school, Sam Schulman demonstrated an exceptional talent for foreign languages, and especially French. Warmly recommended by his high school teachers and with scholarship assistance, he was able to come to Hamilton following his graduation second in his class in 1952.
While on the Hill, Sam Schulman became a member of the Squires Club and diligently pursued his linguistic studies, constantly trudging between his quarters in Carnegie and Benedict Hall. Successfully overcoming the challenges of Mathematics 15-16 and occasionally taking time out to root for the Continental pucksters and the Clinton Comets, he focused his studies on Romance Languages and was active in the French and Spanish clubs. The winner of the Soper Prize Scholarship as well as the Hawley and Winslow Prizes and Fitch Prize Scholarship, all in Latin, he also received the Winslow Prize in Foreign Languages. Elected to Phi Beta Kappa, he was graduated with high honors as well as honors in French and public speaking in 1956.
Awarded a Fullbright scholarship, Sam Schulman spent a year studying French and Spanish literature at the University of Clermont-Ferrand. Following his return from France, he pursued graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin, where he acquired an M.A. in French in 1958. In 1961, after further graduate study, he began his 43-year teaching career as an instructor at Lamar Junior College in Colorado. Two years later, he returned to the East Coast for a two-year instructorship at Bronx Community College. In 1965, he joined the faculty of Central Connecticut State College (now University), where he would continue to teach French and Spanish until his retirement 36 years later.
Promoted to assistant professor in 1969, and to associate professor upon receiving his doctorate from the University of Paris (the Sorbonne) in 1976, Sam Schulman became a specialist in the culture and traditions of Canada’s Province of Quebec. After his retirement from Central Connecticut State, he continued to teach part-time at the University of Hartford until he fully retired in 2004. His leisure time was spent reading, following sports (he was an ardent Boston Red Sox fan), and walking his dog in the park. In recent years, his need for dialysis had curtailed more active pursuits. He was a devoted member of Temple Beth Hillel in South Windsor, CT, where he had resided for the past 26 years.
Samuel R. Shulman, a loyally supportive alumnus, died on July, 27, 2010. He is survived by his wife, the former Carol Caplan, whom he had married in Denver, CO, on August, 17, 1963. Also surviving are two daughters, Laura Schenkman and Janice Rosinski, and four grandchildren.
Thomas Clayton Curran ’58
Thomas Clayton Curran ’58, a retired lawyer and banker, and a railroad enthusiast, was born on February 9, 1936, in New York City. The son of Francis E. Curran ’24, also a lawyer and banker, and the former Mildred S. Clayton, he grew up in Floral Park on Long Island, where he was graduated from Sewanhaka High School. Tom Curran arrived on College Hill in 1954 and became a member of Lambda Chi Alpha. Later chosen as social chairman of its house, he was also active in the Newman Club. Not one “to let an uninformed opinion pass unchallenged,” according to The Hamiltonian, he majored in history and departed the Hill with his diploma in 1958.
Tom Curran thereafter enrolled in the Fordham University School of Law, where he earned his LL.B. degree in 1962. That year, he began his career in banking as an assistant trust and estate administrator at the United States Trust Co. in New York City. On February 2, 1963, he was married in Garden City, NY, to Carolyn C. Nygren, whom he had met while in law school. In 1965, the couple moved upstate to Glens Falls when Tom was offered the position of assistant trust officer at the Glens Falls National Bank.
Promoted to trust officer in 1968 and vice president in charge of its trust department in 1975, Tom Curran remained with the bank until his retirement in 1993. Drawing upon his lifelong interest in railroads and railroading, he then established Trains Plus, a model builders’ hobby shop, in downtown Glens Falls. The store, operated with his wife, became a gathering place where Tom officiated as “railroading guru and father confessor” to fellow enthusiasts in the region. He retired from the store in 1999.
During his years in Glens Falls, Tom Curran, a past president of the Warren County Bar Association, was highly active in community affairs and especially charitable organizations. He chaired the board of the local chapter of the United Cerebral Palsy Association and served as president of Catholic Charities of Warren/Washington County, the Glens Falls Kiwanis Club, and the Friends of Crandall Library.
In 2005, the Currans moved from Glens Falls to the sunnier climes of New Bern, NC. There Tom did volunteer legal work and took particular pleasure in time spent with fellow members of the New Bern Model Railroad Club. A onetime president of the Adirondack Alumni Association, he remained faithfully and generously supportive of Hamilton throughout the years.
Briefly ill, Thomas C. Curran died at his home in New Bern on April 3, 2010. In addition to his wife of 47 years, he is survived by three sons, Andrew S. ’86, Matthew T., and William W. Curran. Also surviving are three grandchildren and a sister.
Robert Charles Gibbs ’58
Robert Charles Gibbs ’58, whose varied career included management positions in the human resources field, was born on October 16, 1936, in Utica, NY. The son of Charles R. Gibbs ’38, a onetime physics instructor at Hamilton, and the former Elaine Weismann, he grew up in Utica and was graduated from Whitesboro Central School. He followed his father to Hamilton in 1954, joined Delta Phi, and remained on the Hill for two years.
After three years in the U.S. Army, Bob Gibbs returned to Central New York and was employed in human resources and industrial sales at Revere Copper & Brass, Inc., in Rome, where his father served as a technical advisor. He later resided in various locales before taking up permanent residence in Florida in 1970. Over the years he worked primarily in human resources, but was also at times a dealer in rare books, a nature photographer, and a historical museum curator. He retired in 1995. Thereafter he became actively involved in environmental causes as a volunteer at wildlife refuge and rehabilitation centers. He also taught conservation classes in local schools.
Robert C. Gibbs, a resident of Milton, FL, died on July 23, 2010. He is survived by three daughters, Kathryn Cook, Marjorie Cobane, and Renae Semione; a son, Charles R. Gibbs II; and 12 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
William Hotchkiss Breckinridge ’59
William Hotchkiss Breckinridge ’59, long employed in the telecommunications industry, was born on May 11, 1934, in Bronxville, NY. A son of John S., an attorney-at-law, and Emily Hotchkiss Breckinridge, he was a grandson of William H. Hotchkiss, Class of 1886. William Breckinridge, known as “Bill” or “Breck,” prepared for college at Salisbury School in Connecticut. He came to Hamilton in 1952 and joined Chi Psi. However, he left after a semester and soon entered the U.S. Army. He served in the enlisted ranks for two years, mostly stationed at Ft. Hood, TX. Following his discharge in 1955, he returned to College Hill with the Class of 1959 but left again after two years.
Breck Breckinridge went to work in sales for New England Telephone & Telegraph in the early 1960s. He remained as a sales manager with the company and its successor, Verizon, for the rest of his working life. A resident of Andover, MA, for 44 years, he was a longtime president of the Andover Little League and a founder of Andover Youth Hockey.
William H. Breckinridge, who had been residing in Amherst, NH, for the past seven years, died on January 6, 2010, while hospitalized at nearby Manchester. He is survived by his wife of 49 years, the former Mary McDonough. Also surviving are two daughters, Sally Green and Mary “Lee” Cooper; a son, John C. Breckinridge; and 10 grandchildren and a brother.
Philip Southworth Lord ’59
Philip Southworth Lord ’59, a retired financial consultant, was born on May 2 1937, in Alexandria, Egypt. The younger son of Richard N. Lord, who was employed in overseas operations with General Moters, and the former Catherine Swindells, he arrived in New York with his family when they returned home in September 1939, upon the outbreak of World War II. Phil Lord grew up in Westchester County and prepared for college at Hackley School in Tarrytown. His teenage summers were spent as a counselor at a YMCA camp in New Hampshire. He followed his brother, Alan B. Lord ’58, to Hamilton from Tuckahoe, NY, in 1955, and joined his fraternity, Alpha Delta Phi. Credited by The Hamiltonian with a “bouncing gait and uncanny ability to murder a joke,” Phil was elected vice president as well as “chief channel-changer” of the AD house in his senior year.
Having majored in government, Phil Lord left the Hill with his diploma in 1959, and he soon found himself in a U.S. Navy uniform. Commissioned as an ensign, he served as an engineering officer aboard the attack carrier U.S.S. Franklin D. Roosevelt. In 1963, after three years on active duty in the Atlantic and Mediterranean, he was discharged with the rank of lieutenant (j.g.) in Italy. He stayed on for a time to travel around the Mediterranean, with the primary aim of visiting the house in Alexandria in which he had been born. While he was taking photos of the house, he was accosted by Egyptian soldiers who accused him of spying (the army barracks happened to be located just across the street). With his usual charm, he convinced them that they were mistaken, and even came away with a souvenir photo of him and his would-be captors arm in arm.
After his return home, Phil Lord began his employment with Union Carbide Corp. Beginning in its consumer products division in New York City, he later became its sales officer manager in the Boston, MA, area. In 1968, having “discovered the financial world,” he left Union Carbide and soon joined E.F. Hutton, the stock brokerage firm in Manhattan, as an account executive. He remained with Hutton and its successors, including Shearson Lehman Hutton and Smith Barney, until his retirement in 2005.
Phil Lord’s bachelor days ended on April 24, 1976, when he and Kathleen V. “Kathy” Randall were wed. After residing for several years in Manhattan, the couple moved to Yonkers, which remained their home for 26 years. After Phil’s retirement, he and Kathy relocated to a lakeside house in central Florida, where Phil turned to new interests, including landscaping and tropical plants. Summers were spent at “Fern Lodge,” their cottage in New Hampshire, where Phil devoted the day to whatever repairs around the place were needed and evenings to sitting on the porch in his favorite rocker, with music for background and “a cold beer by his side.”
Philip S. Lord, most recently a resident of Southampton, Long Island, died on August 7, 2010. In addition to his wife of 34 years, he is survived by daughter, Elizabeth Lord; his brother, Alan; and a sister, Susan Peace.