Eldon Horace Earle Jr. ’35

A former class president, Eldon died at the Medical Center at Princeton April 27, 2002.

Born in Newark, he prepared at Loomis School, Windsor, Conn. At Princeton he majored in politics, played baseball, and was a member of the Madison Club. Post-graduation, he worked briefly for Royal Exchange Assurance in New York City. His next employer, American Foreign Insurance Association, sent him to set up company offices in Colombia and Venezuela. He called the latter "home" for the next 46 years. In 1952 Eldon formed Imataca as general agent for the Insurance Co. of North America; three years later he co-founded and directed La Venezolana de Seguros and saw it through Venezuela's 1958 revolutionary change of government before retiring as vice president in 1982.

Eldon married twice. His first wife, Rona Benzie, mother of his two daughters, died in 1959. The following year he married Ruth Parkhurst. Their son, Hobart S. Earle '83, had just graduated from Princeton when his parents came back to New Jersey to live. Both threw themselves into church and class activities. Through the University's International Center they became a host family for foreign students. Also, for the next 17 years, they were volunteers for any and all tasks '35 needed in Princeton.

When Eldon died, he was survived by Ruth, his three children, three grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

The Class of 1935