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CLIFFORD IRVING POWERS died January 15 in Norwell, Mass. He taught fencing at Harvard, Radcliffe, and other area colleges and universities, and was a founder of the Boston Fencing Club. A native of Moncton, New Brunswick, he became a U.S. citizen in 1942 and served in the army in the Pacific theater during World War II. He was an avid pool player and a poet who enjoyed a game of chess. He leaves no immediate survivors.
EDITH MACBRIDE TRAYSER '21 died October 28, 1999, in Philadelphia. She leaves a daughter, Nancy Hoffman, and a son, Malcolm, M.B.A. '50; her husband, Lewis, and a second son, Donald, predeceased her.
CHARLES FREDERIC ALBERT '23mcl, LL.B. '26, S.J.D. '27, died December 21 in Cambridge. He was retired senior partner of the Boston law firm of Warner & Stackpole, and for many years was also an active Mason. He leaves two devoted companions, Margaret Roche and Kit Morrison.
PHILIP RHODES AVERELL '26 died November 11, 1999, in Quarryville, Pa. He was retired from a 32-year career as a research chemist with American Cyanamid Corp., in Stamford, Conn. He leaves two sons, John, Ph.D. '63, and Richard.
OSCAR CATSIFF '26cl died January 18 in New Port Richey, Fla. He worked as a music arranger for Irving Berlin Music Co. before joining Chappell & Co. as a music editor and arranger, retiring in 1968. He continued to write music and give public piano performances until shortly before his death. He leaves two daughters, Ruth Harold and Beth Unger; his wife, Molly, predeceased him.
BENJAMIN EISNER '26cl, LL.B. '29, of Fort Worth, Tex., died March 1, 1999. A retired Dallas retail executive, he was former vice president of Neiman-Marcus and manager of its North Park store. He had been vice president of the Dallas Import-Export Club and the North Dallas Chamber of Commerce and a past president of the International Trade Association of Dallas. He leaves a brother, Nathan '27; his wife, Memie (Bright), predeceased him by 17 days.
HOLLIS STRATTON FRENCH '26, of Annisquam, Mass., died January 28. After retiring as headmaster of Miss Porter's School, he served as president of the Children's Friend and Family Service Society, chairman of the Annisquam Art Gallery, and president of the Cape Ann Symphony Orchestra. He leaves his second wife, Juliet, two daughters, Sarah Perry and Deborah Glynn, a son, Robert, LL.B. '60, and a sister, Rue Gale.
FREDERICK VANDERBILT FIELD '27 died February 1 in Minneapolis. While attending the London School of Economics after Harvard, he came under the influence of the socialist Harold Laski and thereafter dedicated his life to leftist causes. From the 1930s to the early 1950s he served as a board member of the Institute of Pacific Relations, as an organizer and executive secretary of the American Peace Mobilization, and as secretary of the bail fund of the Civil Rights Congress. In 1953 he moved to Mexico, where he lived nearly 30 years and took up archaeology. He was the author of an autobiography, From Right to Left. He leaves his fourth wife, Nieves (Orozco), four daughters, Lila Jacob, Nievska Gonzales, Federica, and Xochitl, and a sister, Mary Jackson.
LEONARD HARRY GOLDENSON '27, LL.B. '30, died December 27 in Sarasota, Fla. As owner of American Broadcasting Co. from 1953 to 1986, when he engineered its merger with Capital Cities, he transformed ABC from a broadcasting underdog into a network giant and revolutionized the television industry. He came to television from the motion-picture business, having served as president of United Paramount Theaters. Later he persuaded movie studios, which viewed the new medium as the enemy, to begin producing programs for TV, a partnership that created some of the highest-rated programs of the 1960s and '70s, including The Untouchables, Leave It to Beaver, 77 Sunset Strip, Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley, and Charlie's Angels. He also pioneered such innovative programs as Movie of the Week, Monday Night Football, Nightline, and the first miniseries, Roots. He also gave crucial support to the start-up of Disneyland in 1953 and to the launching of ESPN in 1984. A major Harvard benefactor, particularly of the Medical School, he was also founder and past president of the United Cerebral Palsy Foundation. He was the coauthor, with Marvin J. Wolf, of Beating the Odds: The Untold Story behind the Rise of ABC: The Stars, Struggles and Egos That Transformed Network Television. He leaves his wife, Isabelle (Weinstein), and two daughters, Loreen Arbus and Maxine '72; a third daughter, Genise, died in 1973.
WENDELL EGERTON RYERSON '27, LL.B. '30, died January 17 in Stoneham, Mass. He was a retired attorney who practiced law for half a century in Needham, where he also served as a town selectman. He leaves a daughter, Judith, a son, Richard '64, M.A.T. '65, and a brother, Wilbur; his wife, Susan (Souther), died in 1990.
AMYAS AMES '28, M.B.A. '30, died January 24 in Lexington, Mass. A former Harvard Overseer, he had been managing partner and chairman of the executive committee at Kidder, Peabody; president of the Investment Bankers Association; and twice governor of the New York Philharmonic and Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, he established the orchestra's free "Concerts in the Park" series in 1965 and oversaw the creation of the Live from Lincoln Center television broadcasts a year later; he also spearheaded the renovation of the Philharmonic's concert hall at Lincoln Center, which reopened in 1976 as Avery Fisher Hall. An avid environmentalist, he published a collection of his nature photographs and essays as a book, The Private Lives of Our Natural Neighbors. In his last years he designed and supervised the creation of a handicapped-accessible nature trail through the wooded grounds of the retirement community where he lived. He leaves his wife, Lucia (Millham), two daughters, Olivia Hoblitzelle and Joan, and two sons, Oakes '53 and Edward '55; his first wife, Evelyn (Perkins), died in 1990.
GEORGE LEDYARD STEBBINS JR. '28mcl, Ph.D. '31, died January 19 in Davis, Cal. One of the foremost botanists of the twentieth century, he is credited with bringing modern evolutionary theory to the study of plants. He began his teaching career as a professor at Colgate University and later joined the faculty of the University of California, he was a past president of the Michigan, where he taught for 31 years and also served as associate dean of the Horace Rackham Graduate School. He was an internationally recognized authority on the nature and physics of comets. As a naval captain during World War II, he served tours of duty as commander of a destroyer division in the Pacific theater and as assistant professor of naval science and tactics at Rice University. He leaves his wife, Marie (Dresser) '34.
PRISCILLA TYLER '31 died September 17, 1999, in Ottawa, Kan. She was professor emerita of English and education at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, and headed the English department at the Harvard Graduate School of Education from 1959 to 1963. In 1970 an airline strike landed her unexpectedly in Fairbanks, Alaska; captivated by the Inuit culture she observed there, she spent much of the next quarter-century touring Inuit villages collecting art, taking photographs, and recording songs and stories of their people. A small portion of her collection of art was exhibited at the Ottawa (Kan.) Art Gallery in 1991, and she donated some 1,500 prints and carvings to Carleton University in Ottawa, Ontario. She leaves her devoted colleague and companion, Maree Brooks.
JACOB CANTER '32scl, Ph.D. '40, died January 31 in Bethesda, Md. A retired diplomat, he served as a public and cultural-affairs officer with both the State Department and the U.S. Information Agency; his postings included Nicaragua, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, and Spain. At his retirement he was visiting professor of public diplomacy at Tufts University's Fletcher School. He later became an active member of the governing board of DACOR, Diplomatic and Consular Officers Retired. He was a navy veteran of World War II. He leaves his wife, Alva (Leo), and a daughter, Emily Maceira.
JOHN SLEEPER HARTWELL '32, M.B.A. '34, died January 1 in Pasadena, Cal. A World War II veteran and a retired commander in the Naval Reserve, he had been executive vice president of United New York City, he had served on the U.S. State Department's Advanced Committee on International Business Problems during the 1960s. He leaves a daughter, Elizabeth Rodgers, and three sons, Edwin '60, Benjamin '64, A.B.E. '69, and Jonathan.
JOHN BRITTAIN BIGELOW '33 died January 14 in Putnam, Conn. He was headmaster emeritus of the Rectory School, in Pomfret, Conn., where he spent his entire working life. His parents founded the school in 1920, and he and another boy were its first pupils; he then served as headmaster from 1937 to 1974. During the late 1940s he developed a pioneering tutorial program for students coping with dyslexia; he was also a longtime member and treasurer of the International Dyslexia Association. He leaves his wife, Margarete (Koenig), two sons, John and Blair '60, and a stepson, Robert Fisher.
SYLVIA SHAPIRO FLASHMAN '33mcl died February 6 in Florida. He leaves his wife, Lula (Browne), a son, Edward '76, and a sister, Margaret Tinker.
PERRY TOWNSEND RATHBONE '33 died January 22 in Cambridge. He was an internationally known art authority and former director of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. During his tenure at the MFA, from 1955 to 1972, he expanded the museum by 80,000 square feet, doubled its staff, directed the renovation of a third of its galleries, and started the departments of pre-Columbian and primitive art and contemporary art; he also served as his own curator of paintings. Later he became a senior vice president and director of museum services at Christie's auction house in Washington, D.C. A trial lawyer, he was retired from the antitrust division of the Justice Department, where he spent his entire legal career. During World War II he served in the army's Office of Strategic Services in the Mediterranean theater, retiring in 1963 as a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve. He leaves a daughter, Florence; his wife, Julienne (Cahill), died in 1988.
ARTHUR WINGATE TODD '35mcl died November 14, 1999, in Pepper Pike, Florida State amateur championship four times. He leaves his wife, Cynthia (Rosenthal), two daughters, Dorothy Dewart and Sarah, and two sons, D. Dixon and Samuel; a third daughter, Vivian, predeceased him.
JOHN WINSLOW BRYANT '36, LL.B. '39, died December 12 in Peabody, Mass. He was retired vice president and director of Fiduciary Trust Co., where he worked for 33 years. He was also a director of Boston Children's Service, longtime treasurer of Perkins School for the Blind, and a member of the Boston men's singing group Sangerfest. An army veteran of World War II, he held the Bronze Star and the Croix de Guerre. He leaves his wife, Anne (Phillips), and four daughters, Cynthia Harper, Rose Woodard, Anne Ross, and Alida.
JAMES CARLTON GAHAN JR. '36, LL.B. '40, of Rye Beach, Massachusetts and a law professor at Northeastern University. He also served as chairman of the Belmont school committee and as a member of Belmont town meeting. He leaves his wife, Reiko (Tsubaki), four daughters, Carolyn Collari, Janet Underhill, Barbara Gelnett, and Jennifer '94, two sons, James '66 and Christopher, and his former wife, Jane Stockbridge.
JOHN FRAZEE HASTINGS '36, of Katonah, N.Y., died December 10. He was a retired army captain who served in both World War II and the Korean War. He leaves his wife, Evelyn (Peyser), and a brother, Thomas.
DORIS LEAVITT JARNES '36, of Beverly, Mass., died February 2. She leaves her husband, Harry, a daughter, Lorraine Freeman, a son, David, and a brother, Ernest Leavitt.
