Frederick Mahlon Kafer ’34

Fred Kafer, after a year and eight months in a nursing home in Hudson, Ohio, where he had lived since 1951, died Feb. 15, 1998. He had his 87th birthday in January.

Fred spent his business life in insurance, in NYC, Kansas City, Chicago, and Cleveland. He joined the Pinkerton Agency in Cleveland in 1967, where he found "what I should have been doing in the first place," as he described it, "the most stimulating and rewarding of all my endeavors." He became a v.p. and remained active past our 50th reunion. Later he worked as a volunteer AARP tax consultant.

But in those years he "devoted much more time to R and R," and he and Betty (Elizabeth Covert), whom he married in 1936, traveled extensively. They visited Spain and Portugal (1985), the Panama Canal (50th anniversary cruise, 1986), China (1987), Copenhagen and the North Cape (1989), and London (1992). Fred and Betty were also faithful and enthusiastic reuners, up to and including our 60th four years ago.

Betty survives, as do a son, F. Wilson '63, and two grandchildren. A daughter, Eleanor, died in 1967 at the age of 24 as a result of an auto accident two years before. To Betty and her son we offer our sincere sympathies.

The Class of 1934