Donald McDonald Irwin ’39

WHEN DON DIED at his home in Chevy Chase, Md., Mar. 4, 1991, our Class and our country lost a man much loved and admired. He had officially retired in 1984, but continued in journalism part time until 1990. Don's career began in 1940 at the HERALD TRIBUNE, moving to its Washington bureau in 1950. He joined the LA. TIMES in Washington in 1963. Don covered every U.S. president from Truman through Reagan, as well as the Senate, political campaigns, and civil rights turmoil in the South. He was an aide to Nelson Rockefeller (when he was special assistant to President Eisenhower.) In 1985 our Class honored Don with the 1939 Award.

Polly, his wife of 47 years, cheered and comforted him through the past two years with courage and determination matching his own. To her, their son Donald '65, daughters Edith and Sarah, five grandchildren, and Don's brother Wallace '40, we express our profound sympathy. Wallace said of Don: "He made friends the way a tree grows leaves." No wonder that at Don's memorial service in Washington Nad. Cathedral, members of the Gridiron Club arose and sang "Auld Lang Syne."

The Class of 1939