R. JENNINGS MANGUM ’47 *50 Jay was a serious philosophy student during his wartime years at Princeton. After graduating in 1947 he moved over to the Graduate School, earned a master’s degree in 1950, and then served as a philosophy department instructor.
However, Jay was unable to endure his ascetic Princeton salary ($3,300) and moved to greener pastures — banking — even though at that time his only knowledge of that subject was (he told us) “how to write a check.”
To compensate for this deficiency, Jay enrolled in night studies in business at NYU — a move that allowed him only five hours of sleep a night due to his long commute to his home in Trenton. An ensuing ulcer prompted a move to New York, where in due course he found an active civic life apart from his career with the Chemical Bank, serving on the boards of the New York March of Dimes Foundation, the International College in Beirut, Lebanon, and the New York Theatre Ballet’s predecessor company.
Retiring after 25 years as a senior vice president at Chemical Bank, Jay returned to Rocky Mount, N.C., his hometown.
He died Feb. 9, 2009, leaving no immediate survivors, but we celebrate his life and attachment to Princeton.