Donald McPherson Finnie ’47

Donald Finnie died Dec. 30, 1995, in his apartment in Cambridge, Mass. In recent years, although crippled with rheumatoid arthritis, Don largely overcame the demons of mental illness and enjoyed a pleasant retirement.

Entering Princeton in the summer of 1943, Don developed the musical and theatrical interests that he had enjoyed earlier at Hotchkiss. He was a member of the Theatre Intime, the Glee Club, and the Nassoons. As music director of the Nassoons, he created arrangements for a number of songs that have been sung by every group of Nassoons for the past 50 years.

With his keen wit and his genius musically and otherwise, Don endeared himself to such stalwarts of his era as Jack Taylor '45; Jim Buck, Dick Armstrong, and Ed Knetzger '46; Dick Windsor '47; and Steve Kurtz and Nassoon president Og Tanner '48.

With midcareer law studies and an LLB from Harvard, Don employed his remarkable intellectual capability and drive to produce brilliant contributions in insurance, law, and banking, and in education as an outstanding and very popular teacher at Milton Academy. In addition to his students at Milton, his youthful admirers included a number of the children of his Princeton friends.

To Don's brothers, David '46 and Robert '51, and to his sister, Janet, the class extends deep sympathy.

The Class of 1947