David Thomas McCune ’57

“A lovely man — generous, modest, with a keen and wonderful sense of humor and ability to see the perspective of others,” a colleague said of Tom, who died May 13, 2021, of Parkinson’s disease. Tom’s interests ranged from backpacking near the family’s nearly century-old cabin at Lake Tahoe to completing The New York Times crossword puzzle in ink. 

Tom came to Princeton from St. Andrews School. At Princeton he majored in history and belonged to Tower Club. His senior-year roommates were Pete Bredehoeft, Bill Shinn, and Tim Smith, all now deceased. After Princeton he attended Naval OCS, served for three years, and then went to Stanford Law School. He practiced maritime law in San Francisco with clients in Britain, Scandinavia, and Asia, retiring in 2003. Tom taught admiralty law at the California Maritime Academy and the University of San Francisco law school.

He lived with his family in the East Bay until 1994, when they moved north to wine country. There, he helped found the Sonoma Valley Mentoring Alliance, which has arranged social and emotional support to some 2,000 at-risk children; he himself mentored four. Besides three children and one grandson, Tom leaves his wife, Sheila, whom he met on a blind date in 1966 and married a year later.