By Scott G. Sullivan
Last issue’s notes featured an erudite recollection of 1958 Townies—the many New Haven natives in our class—including a carefully researched list of all their names. Alas, even Homer nods; despite David Lindskog’s exhaustive research and your correspondent’s fact-checking, we managed to omit three stars in that brilliant firmament. For which apologies from both of us and the following corrective additions.
Kenneth Barr came to Yale from Cross High School and lived at home for his first two college years, then moved to Timothy Dwight; he died in 2013. Ted Korzick, who died in 2015, was a graduate of New Haven’s Hillhouse High School. John Hedden was one of ten classmates who graduated from Hopkins School; he matriculated with us but dropped out in junior year to join the military, then returned to graduate with the Class of 1963. He became a realtor in New Haven, served on the football “chain gang” for 30 years. And was born on Yale Avenue.
A number of interesting notes from y’all.
Casey Bensinger writes, as have several others, to praise the Minneapolis mini-reunion. The former drug enforcement tsar also announces, with understandable immodesty, the “trifecta” performed by his brilliant progeny in New Haven. One son teaches at Trumbull, one granddaughter is a senior at Davenport, while another is at Yale Law School, having graduated from Yale summa cum laude and already served as an intern to the chief justice of the Supreme Court. Wow!
Brian Erickson reports that he and wife Carol are doing well. They are in touch with Bud and Gail Preston, but Bud’s health is failing.
John Fiske has submitted an enthusiastic account of golfing by 1958 alums at the Yale golf course—an activity initiated by Joel Schiavone and later run by Bob Morgan. Other regulars included Billy Becklean and Ricky Chase (who actually knew how to play the game). They played an exotic variation of conventional golf, which your correspondent—who knows not a putt from a caddy—failed utterly to understand. In any event, it was a grand group and an exhilarating experience.
Retired cattle rancher Rory Cross writes from Cheyenne, Wyoming, that he is “trying to keep up with the politics in the nation and in Wyoming, attempting to find solutions, without success. My health is relatively good despite slowing down due to age. I hated to miss the mini-reunion in Minneapolis. Maybe next time.”
Meanwhile, the Grim Reaper continues to scythe us down. We have lost five more classmates.
Nick Kindred died in Palm Beach on February 26 last year. After college, Nick served in the Navy in Japan, an “awesome experience.” He then went into trust banking, working for Citibank, First National Bank, and Smith Barney, finishing up as president of Citibank in Palm Beach, where he retired and lived the rest of his life. He was an active churchman, serving on the vestry of Bethesda-by-the-Sea Episcopal Church (and losing his parking spot when President Trump attended services there). He enjoyed tennis, driving his 1931 Model A Ford, and criss-crossing the country in a motor home. He was active and busy till the end.
Cy Farver died September 25, 2018, in Grapevine, Texas. He served in the Army and worked lifelong for Procter and Gamble. He also served as senior partner of Farver Tupper Association Management Company. He was a city councilman in Aurora, Texas, and chair of the Boyd Methodist Church. Unfortunately,Cy became disaffected with Yale because of what he considered its “leftist” turn; instead of his alma mater, he supported Texas A & M.
Dr. Barry Walker, a physician and pharmaceutical executive, died in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, on September 27. He earned his medical degrees at Columbia and Temple and served the US Public Health Service for two years in New Orleans. But he was to concentrate on the pharmaceutical industry; in Philadelphia, he became director of clinical pharmacology at Smith Kline & French, then moved to Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, where he rose to senior vice president. He also worked as an adjunct associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania medical school. He published more than a hundred scientific papers. In retirement, he used his vast biotech experience to advise private businesses and government entities.
Seth Corwin died October 6 in Hornell, New York. Seth personified the bus industry. After school, he returned home to work in his family’s businesses, the Scarsdale Bus Corp., the Tuckahoe School Bus Operation, and later Chappaqua Transportation. He contributed to the standardization of school-bus driver training and personally trained thousands of drivers. He was an avid and expert sailor; he was national sailing champion of the 110 Class in 1958 and sailed in the America’s Cup trials in 1962. He was also in love with trains; he was a locomotive driver for Steamtown National Park.
Ed Easton, a former mayor of Goleta, California, died August 28. Ed was a maverick and an ardent environmentalist. He earned an architecture degree from Yale in 1965 and practiced in Charlotte, North Carolina. He moved to Washington to work for the National Wildlife Federation, then formed his own environmental leadership company. His proudest achievement was helping to preserve some 40,000 wilderness acres in Appalachia. He and his wife moved to Goleta in 2000, and he became active in conservation and land-use management there. He became a city councilman when Goleta was incorporated, and served as mayor in 2012.