Eben Wright Pyne ’39

After a brief illness, Eben died April 11, 2007, at his home in Hobe Sound, Fla.

Following graduation, Eben worked briefly in a New York bank, but in 1940 he joined the New York National Guard as a second lieutenant and fought in North Africa and Italy. When enemy fire forced down his small artillery-observation plane, he was briefly taken prisoner, but jumped off his German captors’ truck and escaped to Allied lines with the help of Italian partisans. In 1946 he returned home as a major with a Bronze Star with five battle stars and immediately rejoined the bank that ultimately became Citibank. He was senior vice president of the trust and investment division when he retired in 1982. He continued to serve on many boards of philanthropic organizations.

Early on, Gov. Nelson Rockefeller enlisted Eben to help rescue New York’s tangle of decrepit railroad lines. That led to continuing public service as a commissioner of the New York Transit Authority, Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, and other public and private posts too numerous to mention.

Eben’s first wife, Hilda, died in 1986. He married Nancy Gray in 1995. She survives him, as do two daughters from his first marriage, Lillian and Alison, five grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. We offer them our sincere sympathy.