Roemer was, as he was fond of saying, educated “in a cloud of orange and black” in Princeton public schools and at Princeton University. He completed his education at Princeton after serving as a U.S. naval officer on destroyer escorts in the Pacific theater of World War II. He earned a law degree in 1950 from Harvard Law School and was admitted to the bars of the District of Columbia, New Jersey, Illinois, and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Upon graduation from Harvard, Roemer began his career in the executive branch of government and was asked to join the staff of President Eisenhower, serving from 1954 until the end of Eisenhower’s second term in January 1961.
Roemer cited his boundless enthusiasm for life in a reunion yearbook: “Life has been generous to me, and it is still unfailingly interesting.”
He is survived by his second wife, Selby Fleming; his three children Roemer III ’78, Joan ’80, and Larkin; nine grandchildren; a large extended family; and his brother, writer John McPhee ’53.
