Frank Blumenthal, who spent almost his entire career with the National Labor Relations Board in Washington, D.C., died Dec. 29, 2011. Alert to the end, he was 97.

Blumenthal was a 1936 graduate of Swarthmore and earned a Ph.D. in politics from Princeton in 1941. His doctoral dissertation was on labor injunctions in the 1930s, and is now in the NLRB library. When he retired in 1976, he worked in a branch of the Office of the General Counsel.

Blumenthal was hard-of-hearing from birth and dependent on lip-reading, but didn’t use sign language. He didn’t let this interfere with his activities. A theater-goer, he also was a keen stamp collector whose main interest was U.S. postage stamps, specializing in air mail and letters that went on space ships. He was an avid fan of the Washington Redskins football team and had season tickets to their games for almost half a century.

A loyal Princetonian, he generously contributed to the Graduate School’s AG campaigns for 51 years, with his last check dated two weeks before his passing.

He was predeceased by his wife, Benita, whom he had married when he was 50.

Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.

Graduate Class of 1941