He spent his formative years in Swarthmore, Pa., and was an Episcopal Academy graduate. At Princeton, he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and won several prizes as an English major. He was active in Whig-Clio and World Federalists.
John went on to earn a master’s degree in comparative literature from Harvard. After attending officer-candidate school in Newport, R.I., in 1951, he was transferred to Washington where he had administrative duties as a lieutenant junior grade until 1955. Opting not to become an engineer, John earned a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, interned at Yale, and returned to Penn for his residency in pathology.
He practiced academic pathology at Indiana University, Yale, and the University of Rochester. Later in his career, he taught pathology at a variety of medical schools and practiced in New Haven, Conn. His first love was education, but his other interests were travel, the arts, nature, hiking, and chess.
His wife, Joan, whom he met in Washington and married in 1954, died in 2006. Our sympathy goes to his survivors: son John; daughters Katherine and Elizabeth; and two grandchildren.