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February 2023
I know that Linda enjoyed meeting many of you at our 50th Reunion gathering in October 2015. It was one of the last trips that she made. Five months later she was dead, succumbing to idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. In some cases that disease process can last several years, but in her case, from the onset of symptoms, she only survived for three months. That was one of the worst periods of my life. Including our time as undergraduates before we were married, we had been together for more than 50 years. Later in the spring we held a Memorial Service for her at St Andrews Presbyterian in Tucson and another in San Antonio so that her many friends in both places could remember her. I was a mess.
I noted in my longer submission that my daughter Heather had been in a program for intellectually disabled people in Florida for more than 25 years. Not long after Linda died, the Executive Director of that program retired and the Board brought in a new ED whose principal experience had been in the Florida prison system. We had really liked and supported the old ED, but the new one was trouble from day one. It came as no surprise that eventually I had to take Heather out of that program and find a new place for her. That took some research but eventually I found a much larger and more professional group in southern Connecticut. It was little consolation that about 18 months later, the Board in the Florida program finally tipped to what the new ED was doing and fired her. Heather settled into the program in Connecticut and was happy enough there, but never seemed to be making much progress toward working or independent living.
I continued to work from Arizona on a variety of legal matters and non-profit boards, although the bulk of the time I helped different insurance companies with the due diligence that is required to buy or sell subsidiaries. Sometimes the deals were concluded, but more often, the parties took my guidance and walked away. As the reality of the pandemic and related quarantines took hold, I came to realize that being alone and far away from my family was just too hard. We had enjoyed using Tucson as a base of operations together, but alone, I knew it no longer felt right.
In November 2020, I withdrew Heather from her program in Connecticut and had her return to Tucson. We then put my house there on the market and sold it on July 1, 2021. The plan was to return to Massachusetts to be closer to my son and his family. My stuff there went into storage and after a miserable drive across country, we settled into an apartment in Charlestown, MA to look for housing. Eventually I settled on a new construction house in Haverhill, MA which is only about 20 minutes away from my grandsons. We closed on that place in November 2021 and then moved in for the next six months. It now feels like home and I am confident that moving was absolutely the right decision for me. Heather has moved right into our top floor and is happy. I am looking into new non-residential programs for her here.
During the time of the great van drive across country, my Mom passed away. She made it to 98 and was able to be in her own house on Mountain Street all the way to the end. We held a Memorial Service for her at the First Congregational Church in Sharon in October which was widely attended both in person and online. Sharon High's old school nurse had a lot of friends. Both of Linda's parents outlived her, but have also since died. Some of you may recall my younger sister Natalie (who was three years behind us). As my Mom began to seriously decline, Nat sold her house near Philadelphia and moved to Sharon to be the principal caregiver. That assignment lasted more than two years. After my Mom died, Nat commenced looking for a place of her own, but wound up spending most of 2022 in hospitals - mostly Beth Israel in Boston where, after an aortic dissection, they did amazing surgery to replace part of her aorta and one heart valve. Then as she was recovering, she contracted Covid and wound up back at BI where bacterial infections nearly took her out. She is a lot better now and beginning to look again for a place to live. My bothers Doug & Jonathan and I will always be grateful for her work with my Mom.
My oldest grandson Aidan is now in the second semester of his junior year in the Isenberg School of Management at UMass. He is 6'4" tall and is enjoying every bit of his time as an undergraduate. He will be in Austin, TX this summer as an intern for Dell. That will be interesting. His middle brother Colin, is a 6'2" senior at Whittier Technical High School and is looking at a number of colleges. He is particularly fond of Colorado State University so we'll have to see where he winds up. The youngest is Tommy who while only 14 is already 5'10" and quite an accomplished athlete. He is also a very competitive young scholar. It is a great joy to me to be watch all three of them and interact with my son and daughter-in-law on a very regular basis.
We lived in Tucson twice; once while I was in the Air Force and then again from 2004 until I left in 2021. It was the place that I was in the longest and I left many friends and terrific memories there. Some who have worked on my new house here have questioned my sanity in decamping to the cold and snow of this north shore community, but I just smile, knowing that there are more important things and the weather is not much different than what we grew up with. I also learned some things working on my undergraduate 50th reunion in 2019 and hope to be able to help as we prepare for our 60th with the collation of stories on our website, both for classmates who have predeceased us as well as those who have not written before.
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March 2015
At the l969 conclusion of my undergraduate work at Denison University,
three significant events occurred in one weekend: I graduated, was
commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the Air Force and married another
Denison graduate, Linda Beebe. She has been the love of my life and 45+
years later, we are still happily married. Linda was a French major and
would go on to teach in many of the places we lived.
The Air Force agreed to defer my active service while I went to law
school. I graduated from The George Washington University Law School,
passed the bar, but was then selected to serve in the White House as the
youngest member of the Domestic Council, a Staff Assistant to the
President of the United States. I spent two very intense years there,
during which our daughter Heather was born.
In 1973 I was called to active duty, serving first in the Office of the
Judge Advocate General in Washington, DC and then for four more years as
a young JAG Captain assigned to Davis Monthan AFB in Tucson, AZ. While
there I also served as a Special Assistant US Attorney with principal
responsibility for medical malpractice cases. I taught forensic medicine
at the University of Arizona Medical School. During our time in Tucson
we learned to love the desert. Our son Eric was born in Tucson.
At the conclusion of my Air Force service, we moved to the Philadelphia
area and I joined The Insurance Company of North America (INA). During
the ensuing 9+ years I held several positions in the law department and
eventually was chosen to be the President of the INA subsidiary
responsible for professional liability underwriting. The latter position
was in New York City; for a while I commuted daily between our suburban
Philadelphia home and my office in lower Manhattan. Finally, we moved to
Flemington, NJ which is where our kids spent most of their growing up
years.
From INA (following the merger with Connecticut General which produced
CIGNA) I was recruited to run two American subsidiaries of a large
British insurer in New York. That lasted only a couple of years as the
parent decided that it did not want to be in the US.
From there I joined Crum & Forster Corporation as their Chief Litigation
Counsel and spent just over five years in Morristown, NJ working on
failed savings and loan cases as well as environmental litigation.
In the mid-1980's, I was recruited to become the General Counsel at ACE
Ltd, which was then a privately held excess underwriter in Bermuda,
specializing in very large risks always written above $100 Million of
underlying coverage. We moved to Bermuda. During my five years there,
ACE did an IPO and later a secondary offering, and there were several
other acquisitions. The work was interesting, expanding my horizons from
insurance to complex securities matters and the joys of public company
compliance.
When a headhunter called to see if I would consider leaving Bermuda, we
were ready to come home. We moved to San Antonio where I became the
General Counsel at USAA, a very large financial services company which
is dedicated to serving US military families. Over the next almost 10
years I had a staff of more than 500 including about 350 lawyers. I
retired from USAA in 2004 and we moved to Tucson.
I was not looking to get back into the workforce again, but another
headhunter called in 2007 and after long discussions, I agreed to become
the General Counsel at OneBeacon Insurance Group, which was conveniently
headquartered in Canton, MA. That gave us a chance to be closer to my
Mom and our son and by then, his wife and our three grandsons who live
in West Newbury, MA. After 5+ years of mostly deal work (selling various
parts of OneBeacon), I headed back to Tucson. I continue to do some
legal consulting work.
Linda's parents are now 93 and 91 respectively and live in an assisted
living facility in LA. My Mom has been a widow for many years, splitting
her time between her house on Martha's Vineyard (May to October) and her
house on Mountain Street in Sharon. At 92, she is still very spry. Our
daughter lives and works in Florida. Our son graduated from Drew
University and is now a manager for Philips in their Healthcare
Division. His wife Erin is an occupational therapist. Our grandsons
Aidan & Colin & Tommy are now 12, 10 and 6 respectively. They are the
best!
We have enjoyed living in a number of places - Tucson has now been the
longest. We find astounding beauty in the desert. We have also been able
to travel a great deal. We read voraciously on a wide range of subjects.
We have always had dogs - at the present time there are 8 - and we have
enjoyed western pleasure horseback riding, owning at various times a
number of quarter horses. For now there is only one - a two year old
female Clydesdale.
There have been the usual illnesses that befall most of us, but for the
most part, we are healthy and happy to be together, blessed to have a
fine family, friends throughout this country and other parts of the
world, and are looking forward with optimism.
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