G. Boyce Batey ’54

Boyce died July 21, 2023.

He prepared at John Marshall High School in Cleveland and was active in track, publications, and orchestra. He majored in English and the American Civilization Program, writing his senior thesis on “The Abnormal Psychological Element in Henry James” — an interest he pursued during most of the latter half of his life. He was a member of Court Club and was a letterman in cross country.

Following Princeton, he read in parapsychology in Duke University’s noted parapsychology research program. He married Nancy Aabye in 1958 and they had two sons, Adrian and Gregory.

Boyce worked for a time with The Wall Street Journal in New York and Chicago, and then with Aetna Life and Casualty in Chicago and Hartford, Conn. Then, harking back to his senior thesis and his studies at Duke, Boyce became the executive director of the Academy of Religion and Psychical Research, serving for 25 years. Its mission is “to discern, develop, and disseminate knowledge of how paranormal phenomena may relate to and enhance the development of the human spirit.”

In his retirement years, Boyce volunteered as a docent/historical interpreter at the Noah Webster House/West Hartford Historical Society, where he enjoyed “guiding people through the house where the Father of the American language was born.” Survivors are not known.