Donald Edward Carey ’51

The son of Salvation Army parents, Don graduated from Blair Academy. At Princeton, he majored in biology, managed the student tailor shop, joined Terrace Club, and roomed with Donald Sutherland. After earning a medical degree at Johns Hopkins, Don spent two years with the Centers for Disease Control, did a residency in pediatrics at Columbia, and got an MPH from Harvard. 

He worked for the Rockefeller Foundation as a virologist for 10 years in New York City, India, and Nigeria; then began a second career as a pediatrician in a Laconia, N.H., clinic for 18 years. A third career began at age 60, spending five years as a physician to Peace Corps volunteers in Benin, Togo, Ghana, and Nigeria.

Don and his wife, Barbara, pursued an eclectic life. They bicycled across the United States; in many countries (including Ethiopia, Eritrea, Zimbabwe, and Mali); and from their home in Gilford, N.H., to four Princeton Reunions. The couple ran the New York City Marathon together at age 70; walked across England and around Manhattan Island; backpacked in Kenya and Nepal including Annapurna; and cross-country skied in Lapland. 

A jazz and movie aficionado and a vegetarian, Don died Dec. 19, 2022, leaving Barbara and five children.