1950s
Walter Joshua Alprin '50
Walter Joshua Alprin '50, a longtime administrative law judge with federal government agencies, was born on July 17, 1928, the son of Morris O., also an attorney, and Sadie Finger Alprin, in Brooklyn, NY. "Walt" Alprin grew up in Brooklyn and prepared for college at the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey. He enrolled at Hamilton in 1946, already planning to pursue a pre-law course of study. He served on the staff of the newly revived campus radio station WHC, as well as The Hamiltonian. Following his graduation in 1950, he entered New York Law School, where he obtained his LL.B. degree in 1952.
That year, Walter Alprin began his hitch in the U.S. Army and served in Berlin, Germany, in the Counter Intelligence Corps. Discharged as a corporal in 1954, he spent a year as a tax editor for the Research Institute of America before his admission to the bar. In 1957, after a two-year association with the firm of O'Connor & Farber, he established his own private law practice in Manhattan. In 1965, he joined the Interstate Commerce Commission's Bureau of Enforcement as a trial attorney in New York City and later in Minneapolis and in Chicago, where he was regional counsel for the ICC, responsible for administrative hearings and criminal and civil trials in seven states.
Married on June 9, 1957, to Barbara Malkar in Brooklyn, Walter Alprin moved with his family to Bethesda, MD, in 1973, when he was appointed as an administrative law judge by the ICC in Washington. In 1981, he left that agency to take a similar position with the National Labor Relations Board, followed in 1989 by appointment as an administrative law judge for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, also in Washington.
In addition, Judge Alprin occasionally served "on loan" to other federal agencies, including the Departments of Labor and Education, and the Federal Reserve Board. His last assignment, beginning in 1991 until his retirement, was as administrative law judge for the newly organized Office of Financial Institution Adjudication, hearing cases throughout the country for bank regulatory agencies, "the most difficult, interesting and invigorating work of my career."
Walter J. Alprin, who had recently returned to Chicago to reside in retirement, died on February 29, 2008. A faithful alumnus, he is survived by his wife of 50 years and three daughters, Elizabeth, Claudia, and Jessica, as well as seven grandchildren and a sister.
William McCombs Tank '50
William McCombs Tank '50, whose activities encompassed retailing, the law, and banking, grew up in Marshalltown, IA, where he was born to Roland L. and Blanche McCombs Tank on September 5, 1928. An outstanding basketball player who led the Marshalltown High School team to the Iowa state tournament, he found the way to Hamilton following his graduation as second in his class in 1946. Bill Tank, impressingly tall at 6 feet, 4 inches, became an imposing presence on campus. As center on the varsity basketball team, he lettered for four years, leading the Continentals (and setting a Hill record) in scoring, and captaining the team in his senior year. A member of Delta Kappa Epsilon and elected to D.T., he received the James H. Campbell Award in recognition of his athletic achievements. Also a member of the Chapel Board, he was graduated in 1950, leaving "a mighty tall void in the DKE ranks," in the words of The Hamiltonian.
Bill Tank returned to the Middle West and Marshalltown, where he would reside for the rest of his life. However, first came two years of service in the U.S. Army. Discharged as a sergeant at the end of 1952, he entered his family's retail shoe business, Nichols & Green, Inc., in Marshalltown, later taking over its operations as president. Under his leadership, Nichols & Green expanded from two stores in Iowa to 10 in three states.
In 1974, however, Bill Tank decided to carve out a new career path for himself. He sold his majority interest in the family business and enrolled in the Drake University School of Law. After obtaining his J.D. degree in 1977 at the age of 48, he returned to his hometown to begin his practice. As a partner in the firm of Cartwright, Druker & Ryden, he continued to practice law until health problems compelled his retirement in 1984. With those problems soon resolved, he turned to a new career as executive vice president of the Commercial State Bank in Marshalltown, of which he had long been a director. Two years later, in 1987, he retired for good.
Highly involved through the years in his community, Bill Tank served on the Marshall County Planning Board and as president of the County Mental Health Association as well as the Marshalltown Rotary Club and the Elmwood Country Club. A founder and president of the Marshalltown Central Business District Association, he was also a director of the Chamber of Commerce, Industrial Park, Community Hospital, and Community College Foundation. In retirement, he rediscovered golf, which provided him with a reason to tour the various well-known links, from the Green Briar to Broadmore. Known to family and friends for his keen mind and quick wit, he liked to say that he started each day by reading The New York Times, which usually left him in a state of anger, necessitating a turn to The Wall Street Journal to restore his calm.
Briefly ill, William M. Tank died on March 3, 2008, at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. He was predeceased in 2005 by his wife, the former Avonelle Tye, whom he had married on October 20, 1951, in Marshalltown. Surviving are three sons; William M., Jr., Robert T., and David A. Tank, as well as six grandchildren.
Donald Du Souchet Young '50
Donald Du Souchet Young '50, a retired account executive for the Aetna Life & Casualty Co., was born on September 27, 1926, in Mineola, NY. His parents were John M. Young, a corporation secretary, and the former Edith Du Souchet. Donald Young grew up on Long Island and was graduated in 1944 from Garden City High School. He entered the U.S. Marine Corps that year and served through the end of World War II.
Discharged from the Marine Corps as a corporal in 1946, he enrolled at Hamilton from Garden City that fall. He joined Theta Delta Chi and became a member of the Glee Club as well as the Intramural Council. Described by The Hamiltonian as "owner of plutocratic transportation frequently seen parked at the foot of the Hill, and a great friend of dogs," he majored in history and political science, and left the Hill with his diploma in 1950. On May 10, 1952, he and Joan P. Bucko were wed in Danbury CT. The couple became the parents of four children, Jeffery G., Gregory D., Elizabeth A., and Jennifer D. Young.
A longtime employee of Aetna, Donald Young served during the late 1950s and early 1960s as a state agent for the insurance company in Louisville, KY. In 1962, he was transferred to Aetna's casualty and surety division office in Rochester, NY. Promoted to supervisor of its agency department, he remained with the company until his retirement.
Donald D. Young was still residing in Rochester when he died on June 23, 2007, as verified by Social Security records. The College has no information on survivors.
Arthur Moore Handly '52
Arthur Moore Handly '52, who served extensively abroad with the U.S. Agency for International Development before his retirement, was born on March 6, 1928, in Malone, NY. His parents were Arthur W., a lawyer, and Ellen Lynch Handly. He grew up in Malone, in New York's North Country, where he was graduated in 1946 from Franklin Academy. In 1948, following service with the U.S. Army in Japan, he enrolled at Hamilton and joined Delta Kappa Epsilon. However, after a semester, he transferred to St. Lawrence University and there earned a B.A. degree.
Art Handly, who subsequently acquired a master's degree in public administration from the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, began his career in state government in Washington and Oregon. Thereafter he joined the federal Agency for International Development in Washington DC, leading to assignments in Turkey, Jordan, Pakistan, Tanzania, and Egypt before his retirement in 1987.
In recent years Art Handly was residing in Port Kent, NY, on Lake Champlain, south of Plattsburgh. Active in the Knights of Columbus as well as a member of the Plattsburgh Duplicate Bridge Club, he was also a hospice volunteer and a driver for the elderly.
Arthur M. Handly died on January 23, 2008, while hospitalized in Plattsburgh. He is survived by his wife of 56 years, Anne Frenette Handly; four sons, Kevin, Marshall J. '76, Brian, and Paul F. Handly'87; and nine grandchildren.
Roger Franklin Wood '52
Roger Franklin Wood '52, engaged for 42 years in the insurance and real estate fields, was born on July 31, 1927, in Byron, NY, west of Rochester. A son of Dayton C., a farmer and gasoline station owner and operator, and (Amelia) Charlotte Worboys Wood, he grew up in that area and was graduated in 1944 from South Byron High School, where he captained the baseball and basketball teams and was president of the senior class. In 1946, "Rog" Wood enlisted in the U.S. Navy. He served for two years, and continued during that time to play baseball, whether stationed in San Diego or at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, or aboard the cruiser U.S.S. Houston docking in Mediterranean ports. Following his discharge from the Navy in 1948, he was offered a contract by the St. Louis Cardinals to play for its farm team. However, he turned it down to enroll at Hamilton from Honeoye Falls, NY, that fall.
Preceded on the Hill by his uncles, Herbert J. '28 and Carl S. Worboys '33, Rog Wood joined Delta Upsilon and quickly became a campus leader as well as an outstanding athlete. Chosen president of the sophomore class and vice president of the Interfraternity Council, he also served on the Student Council. He played varsity basketball and baseball for four years, becoming captain of the baseball team in his senior year. As a shortstop and batter, he turned in "one of the finest performances in Hamilton baseball history," in the words of The Hamiltonian. Elected to D.T. and Was Los, and president of the Block "H" Club, he left the Hill with his diploma in 1952.
Thereafter, Rog Wood returned to the Rochester area, where he found employment in sales with Rochester Germicide Co. On August 31, 1952, he and Mary Ellen Scrivener, his regular house party date at Hamilton, were married in Rochester. That year, he turned down an offer to play for the Rochester Red Wings, preferring "a more stable family life."
In 1954, Roger Wood began his career in the insurance industry as a field underwriter and brokerage manager for the Home Life Insurance Co. Six years later, he joined Hatch-Leonard, Inc., a general insurance firm, also in Rochester, and became manager of its financial planning services. He was appointed company secretary and later vice president of the company. After his retirement in 1987, he joined his wife's real estate agency, Regency Properties-Better Homes & Gardens, and continued actively involved with it until retiring again at age 70.
Roger Wood, who resided in the Rochester suburb of Pittsford for 34 years before moving to Canandaigua, NY, in 1993, served as a trustee of the 1st Presbyterian Church of Pittsford. He also coached his four sons through all levels of Little League baseball and was a director and past president of the Pittsford Little League. In Canandaigua he and Mary Ellen lovingly restored a Victorian-era country home, and Rog became active in the United Presbyterian Church and the Ontario County Republican Party as well as the Rotary Club, from which he received its Paul Harris Award for community service. A faithful alumnus and generous supporter of Hamilton, he also served as president of the Rochester Alumni Association and assisted the College with its fund-raising activities.
Roger F. Wood, courageous in illness and good-natured to the end, was still residing in Canandaigua when he died of cancer on March 31, 2008. In addition to his wife of 55 years, he is survived by his sons, Roger F., Jr., Kenneth B., David C., and Paul C. Wood, as well as seven grandchildren. Recently recalled by classmate Jim Nickel as "tall, agile, athletic, handsome, smart and nice," he added that Rog Wood "never stopped being the kind of person you wanted to talk with and listen to, and the kind of guy we all wanted to grow up to be."
David Lawrence Chute '53
David Lawrence Chute '53, virtually all of whose working life was devoted to public-agency social work, was born on March 6, 1931, in Bombay, India. The son of Gordon M., a chemist, and Marion Beman Chute, he grew up in Leonia, NJ, where he was graduated from Leonia High School in 1949. Dave Chute came to College Hill that fall and joined Tau Kappa Epsilon, in which, as a self-described "odd-ball and semi-reject," he was made to feel at home. In early 1952, however, during the Korean conflict, he withdrew from the College to enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps. He served for three years and attained the rank of sergeant. Thereafter he returned to the Hill, resumed his studies, "typed incessantly to loud Beethoven" in the TKE house, according to The Hamiltonian, and earned election to Phi Beta Kappa.
Following his graduation with honors in English literature in 1957, Dave Chute "drifted" for a year. He then found employment as a psychiatric social worker at Kings Park (NY) State Hospital, and there met Judith M. Hester, a student nurse. They were married on Long Island on August 8, 1959. In future years Dave looked back on their chance encounter as the kind hand of fate, for Judy became "the engine of our family life."
During the ensuing years, Dave Chute, who had taken courses at the Adelphi College School of Social Work, was employed in the fields of mental hygiene, child welfare, and corrections. It was work, he later remarked, "that I sought to challenge my weaknesses rather than those that might have exploited my strengths." After he left the Kings Park State Hospital in 1964, the Chutes settled down in California, where Dave became a child welfare worker for Los Angeles County and in 1966 a correctional counselor at the California Rehabilitation Center in Corona. He was subsequently for 10 years a probation and hearing officer with the San Diego County Probation Department until his retirement in 1982. For him, such work "had been a kind of existential therapy, for which, somewhat incidentally, I got paid."
Dave Chute, who continued to be occupied part-time as a park ranger at the San Diego Wild Animal Park, and later as an elementary teacher in the public schools of Escondido, where he resided, also volunteered as a counselor to inmates in the California penal system. In addition, he was active in his Methodist church and its prison ministry, Kainos. His favorite leisure activity was writing, and especially "autobiographical fiction." The writing often consisted of a novelized version of his romance with his wife, for "my adulthood began when we married and went into limbo in 1994, when she died."
David L. Chute's life in "limbo" ended on January 30, 2008. He is survived by two sons, Jonathan H. and Richard M. Chute; two daughters, Ann Chute-Jacobs and Jessica M. Chute; and seven grandchildren and two sisters.
John Paul Olsen '57
John Paul Olsen '57, who directed international trade shows and exhibitions, was born on September 11, 1935, in Boston, MA. The son of Paul W., an accountant, and Ann Mittenberg Olsen, a secretary, he grew up in Foxboro, not far from Boston, attended Foxboro High School, and prepared for college at Moses Brown School in Providence, RI. He came to Hamilton in 1953, joined Sigma Phi, and majored in art. While on the Hill, he served on the Press Board and the Intramural Council. On June 2, 1957, at the end of his senior year, he was married to Sonia L. Smith in Clinton.
Following his graduation that year, John Olsen returned with his bride to his hometown and went to work for the Foxboro Co., a manufacturer of industrial instruments and electronic control systems, which had already employed him during his vacations from college. Except for six months on active duty as a Massachusetts National Guardsman with the U.S. Army in 1959, he continued employed for more than three decades by Foxboro.
Beginning as an account executive, John Olsen was promoted to assistant manager of Foxboro's exhibit department in 1965 and manager in 1967. Two years later, he was given expanded responsibilities when placed in charge of planning and supervising the design, construction, and administration of the company's international trade shows, exhibitions, and audiovisual programs. As Foxboro's chief of promotions and manager of its international support services, he made excellent use of both his background in art and his administrative skills. He was creative as well as talented in managing people, and his achievements ranged from designing and building a multimillion-dollar TV studio to organizing cocktail parties and other promotional events hosted by sports and entertainment celebrities.
After leaving the Foxboro Co., John Olsen continued to operate his own trade show company, Pheasant Run Studios, in Foxboro, until illness compelled him to retire. He most recently resided in Epsom, NH, where he enjoyed fishing, hunting, a little golf, and the beauty of the Granite State. Over the years he had continued his interest in artistic creativity through sculpture and model-boat building.
John Paul Olsen died on New Year's Day, 2008, at a hospice in Concord, NH, having lost a prolonged battle with cancer. In addition to his wife of 50 years, he is survived by a daughter, Patricia Caffelle, and a son, Erik J. Olsen.
Reynold August Riemer '59
Reynold August Riemer '59, who settled in France and entered the financial field in Paris after his retirement from the U.S. Foreign Service, was born on July 19, 1938, into a German immigrant family in New York City, where he grew up. His parents were Reynold H., a precision toolmaker, and Helen Wolf Riemer. "Rey" Riemer came to Hamilton on a New York State Regents Scholarship from Flushing, Queens, in 1955, as a graduate of Brooklyn Technical High School. Far from an interest in further technical studies, however, he readily took to foreign languages, majoring in German and minoring in French. Active in the Charlatans, becoming their assistant director, he produced and directed Jedermann, the first German-language play to be presented at the College, as well as one in French. Vice president of the International Relations Club, he excelled academically, winning the Wyld Prize and Duell Scholarship in German. Social chairman of Gryphon and not averse to a lively party, he was graduated Phi Beta Kappa and with honors in German in 1959.
Awarded a Fulbright grant, Rey Riemer furthered his studies for a year at the University of Bonn. Following a year in Italy, at the Johns Hopkins University Center in Bologna, he returned to the States and acquired an M.A. degree in 1962 from the University's School of Advanced International Studies. That year, he was appointed to the Foreign Service and began his career as third secretary and vice consul at the recently established U.S. Embassy in Ovagadougou, Upper Volta. In 1965, he was posted to South Vietnam and detailed to the U.S. Agency for International Development, serving as its representative, advising civilian authorities in Pleiku Province. Transferred a year later to Saigon, he served as an advisor to the South Vietnamese government, coordinating support efforts and aid programs in connection with the highland tribespeople, the Montagnards. For his services, he was awarded South Vietnam's Medal of Merit.
Rey Riemer returned in 1967 to Washington, where he was employed at the State Department as a research specialist in Austrian and Swiss affairs. Subsequently a financial economist with its Bureau of Economic Affairs, he was first secretary at the U.S. Embassy in Paris when he and Blanca Camprubi were married in that city on May 22, 1976. A year later, when Rey Riemer acquired his Ph.D. degree from the School of Advanced International Studies, he was an advisor on economic and social affairs with the U.S. mission to the United Nations in New York City. Toward the end of his Foreign Service career he served as economic counselor to the U.S. Embassy in Bogota, Colombia, and as officer in charge of European Community affairs in the State Department.
Frustrated by the frequent moving, disruptive of family life, and bureaucratic aspects of the Foreign Service, Rey Riemer took retirement after 25 years in 1987. He and his family settled permanently in Paris, where he became a consultant on mergers and acquisitions as well as government relations. He was later a managing director of the French affiliate of Turnpoint, an international financial consulting partnership, and was president of Ashmead Associates as well as operator of Corporate Editions, a financial communications and translation service.
Rey Reimer, who occasionally taught courses in international relations at the University of Paris and the Paris campus of Schiller International University, was also very active in politics with Democrats Abroad and was a delegate representing them at the Democratic National Convention in 2000. Fond of art, he collected early 20th-century German and Austrian expressionist works as well as the decorative arts of the same period. A charming and engaging man, and a loyal Hamiltonian, he was also fond of theater.
The College belated learned of Reynold A. Riemer's death, reportedly of cancer, on December 11, 2006, as verified by Social Security records. In addition to his wife, he was survived by a son, Nicholas, and a daughter, Alix Marie.
