George Allan Forsyth ’53

Allan died Feb. 5, 2026.

He was born Feb. 17, 1931, in Manhattan but grew up in Princeton. In high school at Phillips Exeter Academy, Allan discovered his passion for poetry. He wrote recently: “I can hear a song or a poem spoken aloud two or three times and it’s in my memory for good. It’s wonderful. It gives me great joy. That has sustained me throughout my life.” Allan’s friends and family recall his exceptional ability to recite passages of Victorian poetry, Shakespeare plays, and other texts he’d read decades before.

After graduating from Princeton, Allan served in the Army for two years as a photographer of above-ground nuclear weapons tests in Nevada. He also worked as a radiation dosimetrist, conducting crucial measurements of soldiers’ radiation exposure. Decades later, Allan helped form the National Association of Atomic Veterans to ensure that victims of radiation poisoning at the test site were admitted to VA Hospitals.

After the Army, Allan moved to New York and began a professional career as an editor, first of popular magazines, including Show, later of college textbooks for McGraw-Hill and Worth Publishers, and finally as a freelance consultant.

Along with poetry and family, Allan loved aviation and dance. In the 1990s, with his cousin Adam Hochshild, Allan wrote and edited Airplanes, Women, and Song: Memoirs of a Fighter Ace, Test Pilot, and Adventurer, about the aviation pioneer Boris Sergievsky. For many years, Allan supported the New York City Ballet and served on the board of Groove With Me, a free dance school for girls in East Harlem.

Predeceased by his wife, Susan, Allan is survived by their daughter, Katherine; their son, Andrew; and their grandson, Aidan Gearey.