Henry D.M. Sherrerd Jr. ’50

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Henry died March 26, 2022, in Dexter, Maine.

He came to us from Lawrenceville. At Princeton, where his father was a member of the Class of 1917, Henry belonged to Cloister. In his senior year he abandoned his aeronautical engineering studies and transferred to Bowdoin. He served four years in the Air Force and returned to Bowdoin to graduate cum laude in English.

In 1956 he became a technical writer for Bell Aerosystems in Buffalo, but in 1959 bolted to take a seven-month trip around the world. Returning to Buffalo, he joined Cornell Aeronautical Labs, but eventually left to settle as a freelance writer in Dexter. There, with his wife Ayako Ichikawa, whom he met during his Air Force assignment in Tokyo and married in 1960, he pursued his love of writing and poetry, did graduate work in Medieval and Old English at the University of Maine, and contributed to the Bangor Daily News.

His deep attachment to The Pines, a family camp on Lake Onawa in Central Maine that was  accessible only by boat and lit only by kerosene, inspired his book, The Onawa Bestiary: An Opinionated Survey With Digressions. He flew private planes and was a prolific designer and builder of model airplanes.

Henry will be remembered for his wit, fierce independence, and the many talents that defined his eclectic life.

 

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