Henry R. Smedley ’44

Henry Smedley died on Sept. 2, 1997, at his home in Watchung, N.J., after a long illness. He was 75.

He came to us from Haverford and West-town Schools. At Princeton, he roomed in Blair with Joe Quay, was active in the Glee Club and choir, and majored in chemical engineering. His club was Cloister Inn.

Hank graduated in 1943 and then enlisted in the Navy, where he spent two and a half years mostly on a destroyer in the Pacific. After his discharge as a lieutenant j.g., he briefly joined the family retail coal and oil business in Ardmore, Pa., then spent one and a half years in Delaware working as a chemical engineer for Dupont before finding his niche in the oil business. In 1949 he joined the Tidewater Associated Oil Co., which later merged with Scully Oil and then Texaco Oil, from which he retired after 35 years, mostly spent in Manhattan. Henry suffered a severe stroke in 1982.

In 1954 he married Anne Jane Cleaver, who survives him. To Anne and to his sons, Henry and Jonathan; his daughter, Deborah; his brother, Walter '42, and two grandsons, we extend our deep sympathy.

The Class of 1944