Craig W. Gillahan ’37

Craig died Aug. 21, 1997, leaving a wife of 45 years, Royle, children Craig III, Patricia Mease, and Christi Hoffert, and five grandchildren.

At Lawrenceville, Craig played basketball and baseball, and was on the student council. At Princeton, he played basketball and baseball, and joined Cottage Club, but left us at the end of sophomore year.

He was in investment banking with Glore, Forgan & Co. as a statistician and then sold sutures for Johnson & Johnson. He spent four years in the Military Police, entering as a private, leaving as a staff sergeant; he studied Italian at the U. of Michigan and interpreted for Italian prisoners of war. As a veteran he was a member of Wallace Willard Keller American Legion post in Quakertown, Pa.

Next he worked at Standard Register Co. of Newark, N.J., as a special account representative for business control systems. In 1956, he joined the board of directors of Great Valley Mills, which he purchased and operated for 26 years, until he retired in 1982 to play golf and deep-sea fish. This was a mail-order company, shipping worldwide. It specialized in Pennsylvania Dutch foods and gourmet items; among his customers were Ike Eisenhower, Jimmy Stewart, chefs James Beard and Julia Child, and even Albert Schweitzer in the Belgian Congo. He ground whole wheat, rye, and cornmeal flour at an Upper Bucks mill, cracked oatmeal and other grains in his Quakertown store, and shipped white flour from Minneapolis.

The Class of 1937