Obituaries | 1930-1939

JAMES E. MCCABE, 90, a former trustee at Wesleyan who chaired a presidential search committee, and whose career included important posts in government, business, and education, died May 25, 2007. A member of Eclectic, he received his degree with honors and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He received a master’s degree from the Maxwell School of Government at Syracuse University. During World War II he served in Washington, D.C., at the Defense Housing Agency and the War Production Board. After the war he became an executive at Merck and Company, where he worked for 26 years. Prior to his retirement from Merck, he began his service as a Wesleyan trustee and became interested in higher education. This led to his appointment as vice president and treasurer of Skidmore College in 1970. He also led the search committee to fill the president’s chair at Skidmore and was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws there in 1991. In 1974 Wesleyan honored him as a Distinguished Alumnus. Survivors include his wife, Elisabeth Rhoades McCabe, three children, six grandchildren, six great-grandchildren, and a brother and sister.

LEONARD I. LUTWACK, professor emeritus of English at the University of Maryland, died Apr. 1, 2008. He was 91. A member of the John Wesley Club, he received his degree with honors and with distinction in English. He received a master’s degree from Wesleyan and later a Ph.D. from Ohio State University. During World War II he served in the U.S. Army. A specialist in American literature and literary criticism, he taught at the University of Maryland for 32 years. He was an active member of the Audubon Society and wrote a book focused on birds in literature. He was also the author of The Role of Place in Literature. Survivors include his wife, Ruth Taylor Lutwack, a daughter, and two grandchildren.

THEODORE F. KING, 87, a retired office manager, died Apr. 21, 2005. A member of Delta Tau Delta, he received his degree with distinction in history and served in the U.S. Army during World War II. Predeceased by his wife, Priscilla Spenser King, survivors include three daughters and four grandchildren.

HENRY W. JARVINEN, an intelligence analyst who retired from the Central Intelligence Agency in 1976 and then taught cello and worked part-time as a musician, died Sept. 9, 2003. He was 86. A member of the John Wesley Club, he received his degree with honors and then received a master’s degree from Columbia University. During World War II he served in the U.S. Army as an intelligence linguist. He joined the C.I.A. after the war and was later assigned to Finland and the East European desk. Predeceased by his wife, Dorothy, he is survived by three sons, including Matthew L. Jarvinen ’79, and six grandchildren.

RODNEY HUCK, who retired as a research specialist at the Monsanto Chemical Company, died Sept. 4, 2009. He was 93 and was a member of Delta Upsilon. Survivors include his wife, Edith Huck, two children, seven grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

PROCTOR W. HOUGHTON, the president of Houghton Chemical Corporation, longtime secretary for his class, and the recipient of a Distinguished Alumnus Award from Wesleyan, died Jan. 12, 2012, at age 95. He was a member of Alpha Chi Rho. During World War II he worked with Allied Chemical to start new defense plants. Active in a variety of business, educational, and charitable organizations, he was a director and past president of the Ford Hall Forum, the oldest free public educational lecture series in America. At Wesleyan he funded the annual Houghton Scholarship Award. He was also an active participant and supporter of various Quaker organizations, especially the American Friends Service Committee, as well as a cofounder and director of the Newton Arts Center. His wife, Eloise Kautz Houghton, predeceased him. He is survived by four children and five grandchildren, including Jessica Houghton ’08.

WALTER R. HIBBARD JR., who retired as university distinguished professor of engineering at Virginia Tech, died Feb. 24, 2010. He was 92. A member of Delta Tau Delta, he received his degree with honors and with high distinction in chemistry, and was elected to both Sigma Xi and Phi Beta Kappa. He was the brother of D He received a doctor of engineering in metallurgy from Yale University and then served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. Before joining the faculty at Virginia Tech in 1974, he had been the manager of metallurgy and ceramics research for the General Electric Research Lab, the director of the U.S. Bureau of Mines, and a vice president of Owens Corning Fiberglass. He was also the director of the Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research. The author of numerous publications, and the recipient of many honors, including two honorary degrees, he received Wesleyan’s Distinguished Alumnus Award in 1979. His first wife, Charlotte Tracy Hibbard, died. His brother David S. Hibbard ’41 and cousin, Eric K. Begg Jr. ’49, predeceased him, as well. Survivors include his wife, Louise Brembeck Hibbard; three children, including Douglas T. Hibbard ’66; and two grandchildren.

BRYNOLF HAMMARSTROM SR., a chemist who retired as the manager of the technical service department of the Tarkett Company, a flooring manufacturer, died July 18, 2008. He was 90 and was the brother of the late Eric C. Hammarstrom ’36. A member of Chi Psi, he was a conscientious objector during World War II and served in various posts as a smoke jumper and medic. Originally a chemist charged with developing a better floor covering using vinyl materials after World War II, he later moved into management. He was also active both professionally and in his community, serving as a founder of the Lehigh Valley (Pa.) Friends Meeting and continuing his commitment to peacemaking. After a bicycle accident left him disabled, he spent more than two decades as a volunteer in his community. His wife, Helen Bissell Hammarstrom, predeceased him. He is survived by his son, Bryn Hammarstrom ’69, his daughter, three granddaughters, and numerous nieces and nephews.

Bryn Hammarstrom Sr., 90 (Wes ’39), of Westminster House in Allentown, Penn., died July 18, 2008, at Samaritan House, a Wellsboro, Penn. volunteer-staffed hospice, with his son and daughter-in-law at his side. He was born Brynolf Hammarstrom on August 6, 1917, in Brooklyn, NY, the third son of Erik Hammarstrom, an immigrant Swedish engineer, and Inez Dahl, his Swedish-American wife. Bryn was predeceased by his wife of almost 50 years in 1995, Helen Treat Bissell, whom he married at Montclair (NJ) Friends Meeting in 1945, and three brothers, Carl, Eric (Wes ’36), and Sten. He is survived by his son, Bryn Hammarstrom (Wes, class of ’69), and daughter-in-law, Lynne Graham, of Middlebury Center, his daughter, Wendy Hammarstrom of Murrieta, Calif., three granddaughters, Emma Priya, Laura Sunita, and Marina, and numerous nieces and nephews.

He graduated from Ridgewood, N.J., High School, and then Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn., (’39) with a BS in chemistry. He was a three-letter athelete (soccer high-scorer in New England in 1938), and active in the Wesleyan Outing Club and in Chi Psi (both steward and president his senior year). His first job was managing an asphalt plant in Cleveland, Ohio, for classmate Bill Stilwell’s father, but preparations for WWII cut that career short. When he was among the first men drafted in 1941, as a Conscientious Objector to war, he was sent to an ex-CCC camp in Buck Creek, NC, where he worked with the National Park Service for two years. He then volunteered with other COs for the next two years as a Smoke Jumper in Montana, replacing the fire-fighting crews depleted by the war. And finally, he spent two years as a medic in Puerto Rico, using his chemistry degree working in a rural health outreach program, until released in 1946. He subsequently wrote a brief paper which he sent to Wesleyan on the high number of both Conscientious Objectors and non-registrants in WWII who had graduated from Wesleyan. He attributed his own pacifist understanding in part to Wesleyan’s philosophy professor Cornelius Cruse. In 1946 Bryn was hired by a Philadelphia company to develop a better floor covering, working with vinyl chloride and other “new” chemicals. In 1948 the Sandura (later GAF) company bought a factory near Allentown, and he moved from the lab into management, eventually running the quality control, technical service, and customer service departments.

Over the next two decades, Bryn was active in the Lehigh Valley both professionally and in the community. He helped found Lehigh Valley Friends Meeting, serving periodically as clerk, treasurer, and chair of the building committee. He founded and served as officer in local chapters of both ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials) and ASQC (American Society for Quality Control). He led a Boy Scout explorer pack, worked with a local scientific mentoring program for high school students, and was a citizen activist in Lower Milford Township. He continued his commitment to peace-making, as a co-founder of an ongoing peace center in Bethlehem, and as a draft counselor during the War against Vietnam.

In 1970, while bicycle riding in his beloved White Mountains near Jackson, N.H., he apparently suffered a stroke, and was severely brain injured in the fall from his bike. After extensive rehabilitation, he spent over two decades as a volunteer for the American Friends Service Committee, the Bethlehem Council of Churches, the local Prison Society (driving men to look for work before their release), etc.

His wife, Helen, had donated her body to her alma mater, Temple University, but Bryn?s body was rejected due to the MRSA infection developed after a (broken) hip replacement two months earlier. Numerous efforts to find a way to honor his “Humanity Gifts Registry” wish failed, so he was buried the day after his death on his son?s farm in Tioga County, Penn. A small group of friends gathered there, and a memorial service was held at the Lehigh Valley Friends Meetinghouse on September 20.

GEORGE L. DEMORE, who retired as plant manager of the Scovill Manufacturing Company in Clarkesville, Ga., died Mar. 12, 2006, at age 88. He was a member of Alpha Chi Rho. Predeceased by his first wife, Mae Carlin DeMore, and by two daughters, he is survived by his wife, Alice Johnson DeMore, two daughters, five grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.

ROBERT M. DAY, M.D., 92, an ophthalmologist and longtime professor and staff member at New York’s Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, died Oct. 28, 2009. The son of Louis D. Day of the class of 1904, he was a member of Alpha Delta Phi and received both medical and master’s degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. He served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps during World War II. Among those who survive are his wife, Barbara Brush Day, three children, four grandchildren, and his sister.