Gordon Carpenter O’Gara ’42

Gordon O’Gara died July 6, 2008, in West Palm Beach, Fla.

Gordon prepared at the California Preparatory School in Covina, Calif. At Princeton he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and graduated with high honors in SPIA. His senior thesis, “Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of the Modern Navy,” was published by Princeton University Press in 1943. He was a member of Cloister Inn.  

After graduation, Gordon was commissioned as an ensign in the Naval Supply Corps and served four years in the Atlantic and Pacific. He separated as a lieutenant.

Gordon’s love of the ocean led him and his wife, Elizabeth, to live in Florida and the Bahamas. He worked for some time as assistant to the president of the International Oceanographic Foundation. At other times he worked as a freelance writer, operator of a resort in the Bahamas, and assistant director of the Palm Desert (Calif.) Museum. Ultimately he retired to a life of studying projects that particularly interested him.  

Elizabeth predeceased Gordon. They had no children. The class honors the memory of this talented and independent individual.