1950s

Henry Hofman Diehl ’50

Henry Hofman Diehl ’50, emeritus professor of mathematics at Defiance College and a former educational missionary long dedicated to humanitarian causes, was born on May 7, 1928, in Springfield, OH. A son of ­Warren W. and Marjory Beard Diehl, he enrolled at Hamilton in 1946 from Springfield Senior High School. However, he left the Hill after two years and returned to Ohio, where he transferred to Oberlin College. Majoring in mathematics, he earned his A.B. degree in 1950.

In 1954, after two years on active duty with the U.S. Army during the Korean War era, Henry Diehl pursued math studies at Ohio State University and earned an M.A. in 1955. The following year, he and Johanna Kobel were married. Soon thereafter, he began his teaching career at Southern Union College and later at Wittenberg University. In 1962, he and Johanna, with their two young sons, headed to Ghana as missionary teachers under the auspices of the United Church of Christ Board for World Ministries.

Following their return to the U.S. after seven years in 1969, the Diehls settled in Defiance, OH, where Henry joined the faculty of Defiance College. Besides teaching math, he became highly active in a variety of causes, including the local CROP walk, the Heifer Project, and the Overground Railroad, a national group devoted to advancing the historic mission of black churches. A communicant of St. John United Church of Christ and member of the Defiance Democratic Central Committee as well as the Northwest Ohio Community Action Board, he was known for his unceasing efforts in combating poverty and social injustice.

Henry H. Diehl, who had retired from the Defiance College faculty in 1993, died at a local hospice center on July 17, 2011. Besides his wife of 55 years, he is survived by three sons, Gregory, Kwame, and Kwasi Diehl; a daughter, Debra Lenhart; and 12?grandchildren.

Donald Murray Gardner ’50

Donald Murray Gardner ’50, an industrial research chemist employed for 36 years by Monsanto Co., was born on December 17, 1928, in Hartford, CT. The son of Hugh M., an accountant, and Christina McLean Gardner, natives of Scotland, he came to College Hill in 1946 from Oceanside on Long Island as a graduate of Oceanside High School. Don Gardner majored in chemistry and physics, and reputedly spent virtually his entire senior year living in the science labs. Ardently devoted to photography and leading light of the Camera Club, he emerged from the labs long enough to take a plethora of photographs for The Hamiltonian and other student publications, and gained election to the journalism honorary Pi Delta Epsilon as a result. A member of Squires, he excelled academically, garnering a Phi Beta Kappa key as well as the Underwood Prize in Chemistry, and was graduated with honors in chemistry and physics in 1950. On March 25 of the following year, he was wed to Mary Famularo in Oceanside.

Don Gardner pursued graduate studies in chemistry at Columbia University, where he earned an M.A. degree in 1952 and his Ph.D. in physical chemistry in 1956. By that time he had been hired as a research chemist by Shawinigan Resins Corp. (later taken over by Monsanto) in Springfield, MA. As a research group leader he explored polymerization methods. Dr. Gardner, who acquired an M.B.A. from American International ­College in Springfield in 1969, focused his research on adhesives and paints while at Monsanto. He became a senior technology group leader, and in 1981, after 26 years in research and development, was transferred to ­marketing as a commercial development manager, specializing in new polymers for industrial coatings.

In 1991, Don Gardner retired from Monsanto. A founding member of Pioneer Valley Photographic Artists, he continued his ardent devotion to photography in retirement. He also enjoyed furniture finishing, downhill skiing, and travel.

Donald M. Gardner, an ever loyal alumnus, was still residing in Springfield when he died on March 1, 2012, of complications from prostate cancer. He is survived by a son, Craig M. Gardner; two daughters, Janice L. and Cheryl A. Gardner; and two granddaughters. Also surviving is his former wife, Mary.

Carl Peter Grimm ’51

Carl Peter Grimm ’51, a retired business and fund-raising executive, and an inventor, was born on August 28, 1929, in ­Birmingham, MI. A son of John E., Jr., a vice president of the Young & Rubicam advertising agency, and Helen A. Grimm, he prepared for college at Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts and enrolled at Hamilton in 1947 from Carmel, NY, north of New York City. “Pete” Grimm joined Alpha Delta Phi, sang in the Choir, and played on the varsity tennis team for four years, serving as its captain in his senior year. He contributed importantly to the team’s record of eight wins and one loss in 1950, and in 1951 he led it in its first undefeated season (8-0) since 1905. With The Hamiltonian predicting that, “possessed with great potentialities, Pete ought to go far,” he left the Hill with his diploma in 1951.

Pete Grimm soon entered military service and U.S. Naval Officer Candidate School in Newport, RI. Commissioned in 1952, he served as a gunnery officer on a destroyer escort during and following the Korean War. Released from active duty as a lieutenant (j.g.) in 1955, he was married on November 12 of that year to Nancy Ann Steele in New York City.

That same year, Pete Grimm began his business career in sales and marketing with General Foods Corp. He subsequently engaged in the marketing of new products for such companies as Sterling Drug, Revlon, and American Home Products. In between, from 1964 to 1972, he operated his own product development company. During that period he co-invented and marketed a device, a cigarette holder called Count-Down, intended to reduce the health hazards of smoking. However, his most significant invention, in 1968, was the child protection safety cap for medicine bottles, which remains in widespread use today.

In 1984, Peter Grimm retired from product marketing to become a fund-raising consultant to nonprofit organizations, ranging from hospitals and churches to the Citizens Committee for New York City, Montpelier (the General Henry Knox Museum in Maine), and the Rescue Mission of Utica. In 1998, he retired and moved from Connecticut to Friendship, ME. There he served as a trustee of Montpelier while also finding time for tennis, golf, and travel to visit his children and grandchildren scattered from Delaware and Pennsylvania to Hawaii and Australia.

C. Peter Grimm died at his home in Friendship on April 28, 2012. He is survived by his wife, Gloria M. Grimm, whom he had wed in 1994. Also surviving are a son and three daughters from his first marriage, Carl H. Grimm, (Nancy) Ellen Eifert, Laurie Steelsmith, and Susan Wilmot, as well as five grandchildren and a brother and a sister.

Stephen Joseph Kaplowitt '51

Stephen Joseph Kaplowitt, Valedictorian ’51, a retired professor of German at the ­University of Connecticut, Storrs, was born on May 28, 1930, in Newark, NJ. The son of Jacob A., a social worker, and Martha Glick Kaplowitt, he grew up in Newark, where he was graduated from Weequahic High School as valedictorian of his class. He entered Hamilton in 1947 and quickly attained a reputation as among the intellectually brightest members of the student body. Credited by The Hamiltonian with knowing “more German than Herr Liedke, more Lit than Drs. Ristine and Nesbitt, and more Philosophy than Dr. Blyth,” he earned numerous academic awards, including the Fayerweather Prize Scholarship, the Brockway Prize, the Duell German Scholarship, and the Babcock Prize in Philosophy and Pedagogy. He was graduated Phi?Beta Kappa and with honors in English, German, and philosophy in 1951.

Named a Fulbright Scholar while pursuing graduate studies at the University of Pennsylvania, Stephen Kaplowitt became one of the first of that group to study in Germany. Thereafter he resumed his studies in German at Penn, where he acquired an M.A. degree in 1954. His career path was interrupted subsequently by two years in the U.S. Army. He was stationed in divided Berlin as a member of the Army Security Agency and assigned to intercept, translate, and analyze telecommunications. After his discharge as a private first class in 1956, he returned to Penn, where he served as an assistant instructor in German and obtained his Ph.D. in 1962. That year, Dr. Kaplowitt, who was by then an instructor in German at Columbia University, began his 31-year career on the University of Connecticut’s faculty as an assistant professor in the department of Germanic and Slavic ­languages.

Acting department head from 1966 to 1969, and promoted through the ranks to full professor in 1976, Dr. Kaplowitt wrote extensively on both medieval German literature and modern German grammar. He was the author of the monographs Influences and Reflections of the Crusades in Medieval German Epics (1962) and The Ennobling Power of Love in the Medieval German Lyric (1986), as well as coauthor of the textbook A ­German Grammar for Review and Reference (1970). The 13-volume encyclopedia Dictionary of the Middle Ages also contains numerous entries penned by him. In addition to his love of literature and fine arts, he was “an avid connoisseur of classical music and fine food and wine.” Friends and colleagues knew him for his “unwaveringly clear sense of civility, reason and dignified equanimity to any situation.”

Stephen J. Kaplowitt, a resident of Woodstock, CT, and a?loyal alumnus, died on January 18, 2012, while hospitalized in Worcester, MA. Predeceased in 1983 by his first wife, the former Stephanie Shafer, whom he had wed in 1953, he is survived by his wife of almost 30 years, Carlene A. Haworth. Also surviving are two daughters from his previous marriage, Beth A. Kaplowitt and Jane Pike, as well as a granddaughter.

Charles Frederick Schmidt ’52

Charles Frederick Schmidt ’52, long engaged in international banking with Morgan Guaranty Trust Co., was born in Greenwich Village in Manhattan on September 21, 1928. The eldest of three sons of Oscar F., a freelance artist and illustrator for the Saturday Evening Post, and Marian Olds Schmidt, he grew up in Greenwich Village, where he attended the Little Red School House. Charles Schmidt, known to friends as Charlie, was graduated from the Birch Wathen School, also in New York City, in 1946. Thereafter he joined the U.S. Army and served with occupation forces in Korea as a Medical Corps cook.

Discharged from military service as a corporal in 1948, Charlie Schmidt entered Hamilton on the G.I. Bill. He became a member of Delta Upsilon and went out for soccer. He also contributed to the humor magazine Royal Gaboon. Majoring in English and French, he spent his junior year in France (at the University of Paris), becoming an advance solo pioneer of that program at Hamilton. Hailed by The Hamiltonian for his “enormous skills in painting, creative writing, and playing Lead Belly tunes on his trusty harmonica,” he earned honors in French and left the Hill with his A.B. degree in 1952.

Immediately thereafter, Charlie Schmidt began his 32-year career in banking as a loan officer with Guaranty Trust Co., and was assigned to its Paris office. After his father died in a drowning accident, he brought his mother to Paris to live with him on the Left Bank, and there he remained for some years. During that time he reportedly once drank with Ernest Hemingway and played cards with Jean-Paul Sartre.
After his return to New York City, Charlie Schmidt continued his employment with what had become, through merger, Morgan Guaranty Trust Co. He obtained an M.B.A. in international finance from New York University in 1959. During the ensuing years until his retirement in 1984, he worked in Morgan Guaranty’s international division, first as an assistant treasurer and later as vice president. Reassigned to Paris, he specialized in sovereign loans and managed the bank’s relations with countries in various parts of Europe. He traveled regularly throughout the continent, including trips to Moscow and other European capitals. He was also engaged for the bank at times in Latin America and the?Caribbean.

Charlie Schmidt took early voluntary retirement from ­Morgan Guaranty to write, paint, garden, play some golf, and do some down-hill skiing. With his wife, Libby, the former Elizabeth Moss, whom he had married on January 21, 1963, in New York City, he continued to enjoy travel as well. In 1990, the Schmidts moved from Douglaston, Queens, to Sheffield in southwest Massachusetts.

Charles F. Schmidt, a devoted alumnus, was still residing in Sheffield when he died on March 15, 2012, of complications from lung cancer. In addition to his wife of 49 years, he is survived by a daughter, Katherine H. Schmidt ’85; two sons, Timothy B. and William M. Schmidt; and three granddaughters and a brother, Peter B. Schmidt. His brother Robert Denny Schmidt ’62 predeceased him in 2003.

Charles Clark Huber ’53

Charles Clark Huber ’53, for 35 years a buyer for J.C. Penney Co., the retail chain, was born on May 31, 1931, to Francis D., a physician, and Alvina C. Huber. “Charlie” Huber grew up in Mt. Vernon, NY, in Westchester County, where he was graduated in 1949 from A.B. Davis High School. He came to College Hill that fall and joined the Emerson Literary Society. He engaged in intramural sports and played his share of bridge and ping pong. Fraternity editor of The Hamiltonian in his senior year, the loose-jointed and prank-prone “Hube” gained special attention for his “riotous Chapel announcements” on behalf of the social organization committee.

Following his graduation in 1953, Charlie Huber was steered by a fellow alumnus to J.C. Penney, where he enjoyed a long and satisfying career as a buyer and later inventory control and operations manager for menswear. In 1988, when the company moved its headquarters from New York City to Plano, TX, he decided to take retirement rather than move down there with it.

Charlie Huber, long a resident of Bronxville, NY, was active in the Republican Party in his community as well as in the Reformed Church, and was also a 15-year volunteer at the local Lawrence Hospital. He remained an ardent bridge player and continued to play both tennis and paddle tennis until his knees “gave out.” Remembered by family and friends for “his sense of humor, love of sports, bridge and dogs,” especially Dalmatians, he is particularly remembered on College Hill for his devoted service to Hamilton and his classmates over many years. A longtime leader and former president of the Metropolitan New York Alumni Association, he assisted the College with its fund-raising activities and helped plan class reunions. He also served for 14 years until 1993 as class correspondent for this magazine.

Charles C. Huber, ever genial and congenial, was still residing in Bronxville when he died on January 18, 2012. He is survived by his wife, the former Mary E. Means, whom he had wed on June 21, 1958, in Woodbridge, CT. Also surviving are two daughters, Betsy Port and Ann Zoghlin; a son, John C. Huber; and seven grandchildren.

Edmund John Trepacz ’53

Edmund John Trepacz ’53, a retired physician, was born on April 14, 1927, and reared in New York Mills, NY, not far-distant from Clinton. His parents were Adam Trepacz, a weaver in the textile industry then prominent in the area, and the former Dorothy Gondek. In 1945, following his graduation from Whitesboro Central School, Ed Trepacz entered in the U.S. Navy. He served a three-year hitch, and his experience in the Navy’s Hospital Corps led him to decide upon a career in medicine. He enrolled at Hamilton in 1949, joined Delta Upsilon, and, majoring in chemistry and biology, was graduated in 1953.

Accepted for admission by the State University of New York College of Medicine in Syracuse, Ed Trepacz stayed on there to earn his M.D. degree in 1957 and serve his internship and residency in internal medicine at Upstate Medical Center. He subsequently served a residency there in neurology, which became his specialty. Thereafter he established his private practice in Syracuse but left after 11 years for the challenge of emergency medicine as an emergency room physician for 18 years at Crouse Memorial Hospital, also in Syracuse. In the last phase of his career he became medical director of the General Motors Fisher Body plant in that city and was additionally employed by the New York State Department of Health in its local office as a medical affairs officer in the Office of ­Professional Medical Conduct.

Ed Trepacz, long a resident of the Syracuse suburb of Fayetteville, enjoyed golf and fishing, following the fortunes of the Philadelphia Phillies as well as the Continentals’ football and hockey teams, and especially vacations with his grandchildren in Boca Grande, FL. He remained devoted to the College throughout his life.

Edmund J. Trepacz was still residing in Fayetteville when he died on November 22, 2011, after a brief illness. Predeceased in 2003 by his wife, the former Jane Zurek, whom he had married on August 6, 1955, in New York Mills, he is survived by a son, Edmund J. Trepacz ’84, and two grandchildren and a sister.

Eastham Hockmeyer ’54

Eastham Hockmeyer ’54, a retired business executive, grew up in Lowell, MA, where he was born on April 28, 1931. A son of Clive E. and Lydia Langdon Hockmeyer, he prepared for college at Westminster School in Connecticut and arrived on the Hill in 1950. His brother, Vincent Hockmeyer, had preceded him in the Class of 1944. He joined Sigma Phi and sang in the Choir. At home on snowy hills, he also became a member of the ski team and gained membership in that convivial group of comrades, Nous Onze. On June 17, 1953, he was married to Anne Dunsford in Chelmsford, MA, and the couple took up residence in the North Village for his senior year. Having majored in anthropology and psychology, he was graduated in 1954. It was followed by two years of service in the U.S. Army.

Eastham Hockmeyer thereafter returned to Lowell, where he went to work in the family business. Founded by his father in 1939, Vertipile, Inc., was engaged in manufacturing flock and flock-coated materials for apparel and home furnishings. He became an executive of the company (later merged into Quaker Fabric Corp.) and was Vertipile’s executive vice president and secretary when he sold his interest in the company in 1978 and retired. While residing in Westford, MA, he subsequently served as executive vice president of the Omnia Group, with offices in Tampa, FL.

Busily involved in community activities such as Meals on Wheels, Eastham Hockmeyer also served as deacon and trustee of the First Christian Church of Freedom, NH, where he had taken up residence after moving from Westford, following the death in 1988 of his wife Anne, the mother of his three children. An avid hiker as well as a skier, he especially enjoyed outings with his family in the White Mountains. He also enjoyed being “walked” by his devoted golden retrievers. Possessing “a delightfully dry sense of humor,” he was known for his intense interest in the world’s happenings and as “a dear and wonderful man of integrity.”

Eastham Hockmeyer, a faithful and generously supportive alumnus, died at his home in Freedom on March 31, 2012. He is survived by his second wife, the former Mary Stewart, whom he had wed in 1990. Also surviving are his daughter, Lisa Oliveri, his two sons, Eastham Scott and Peter Hockmeyer; and four grandsons, as well as three stepchildren and seven step-grandchildren. His brother Vincent predeceased him in 1998.

James Boyce Butterfield ’57

James Boyce Butterfield ’57, a physician and neurosurgeon, grew up in Buffalo, NY, where he was born on March 13, 1936. His parents were Dwight W. Butterfield and the former Kathryn Maischoss. He came to the Hill in 1953 from Bennett High School in Buffalo to pursue a premedical course of study. He joined Lambda Chi Alpha and served on the Chapel Board and the editorial staff of The Hamiltonian. He also played tennis and was a cheerleader. Serious of purpose and possessed of initiative and energy, he gained acceptance to several medical schools. Following his graduation in 1957, he chose the University of Rochester School of Medicine, where he earned his M.D. degree in 1961.

James Butterfield trained as a neurosurgeon at the Albany (NY) Medical Center Hospital. In 1969, following a year’s research at the National Institutes of Health, he joined the staff of Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, MI, as a physician and staff neurosurgeon. By that time he was married with three children.

Dr. Butterfield subsequently moved to California, where he was licensed to practice medicine in 1980. He established his practice in Marysville, north of Sacramento. In 1994, he and his wife, Ida M. Butterfield, a nurse, established a company, Liff Belt Inc., to market internationally a device they had invented. Called the “Liff Belt,” it was intended to help home-care givers as well as medical staff prevent back injuries in lifting and otherwise moving patients by use of an ergonomic pulling motion device. With James Butterfield as president of the company, it was later relocated to Las Vegas, NV.

James B. Butterfield died in Las Vegas on August 21, 2011, as verified by Social Security records. The College had no communication with him after his move to California and has no information on survivors.