Erwin Bruce Hallett Jr. ’44

Bruce died March 8, 2016, in Bennington, Vt. Entering Princeton from Exeter, he roomed with Wally Johnson in 1940, then with Karl Harr, and junior year with Rocky Semmes. He was a member of Cottage Club.

He was an All-American on Princeton’s 150-pound football team. He majored in biology but left after junior year to attend the University of Rochester School of Medicine, where he received his medical degree. He then did graduate work at Johns Hopkins Hospital and Strong Memorial Hospital. Bruce married Constance Carpenter in 1943. He spent 27 months in the Navy as a lieutenant junior grade, principally in the Mediterranean Sea.

Bruce was part of the team that performed New Jersey’s first open-heart surgery. He spent his career in Morristown, N.J., becoming chief of surgery and then vice chairman of the surgery department at Morristown Medical Center. Bruce loved skiing, hiking, canoeing, and golf. After retirement, he and Constance went on a canoe trip down the Nahanni River in the Canadian Northwest Territories. He attended 1944’s 50th reunion.

He was predeceased by Constance, his wife of 63 years, in 2006, and is survived by their daughters Christine, Patricia, and Gay; sons Erwin Bruce ’71, Thomas, and Laurence; 20 grandchildren; and 11 great-grandchildren.