Charles R. Rourke ’49

Charlie died May 12, 2010, in Sunnyvale, Calif. Although he had lived there for a number of years, our knowledge of his life and career is fairly limited. His Princeton connection as an alumnus was primarily as an interviewer for the schools and scholarship committee in recent years.

Charlie came to Princeton from Yonkers, N.Y. He was a member of the Chess Club and majored in electrical engineering. After graduation, his work took him from New Jersey to Texas to California, all with major defense contractors. According to our class directory, he married Adele in 1964 and they had two children, Stephen and Nancy.

In 1976, Charlie and Adele divorced, and he never remarried. Unfortunately, Adele was killed in a skiing accident in 1992. Charlie also did a lot of skiing and won several National Standard Race silver medals. In our 1999 class biography, he mentioned that he was hoping to “work up to a gold medal before I have to give up skiing.”

The class sends its condolences to Stephen and Nancy, his only survivors.