Herbert Van Sant Brewer ’42

Van Brewer died peacefully March 5, 2007, at home in Brewster, Mass.

A graduate of Choate School, Van was captain of the championship wrestling team at Princeton and received the Treide Cup. A member of Dial Lodge, Van roomed with Howie White, who became a lifelong friend. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa with high honors in mechanical engineering.

Van installed and repaired shipboard Sperry gyroscope compasses to support the war effort. In 1945 he voluntarily served two years in the Army Corps of Engineers to train bomber crews at Sandia Base in Albuquerque, N.M. He received an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1950. After retiring from Polaroid in 1980 he moved from Wayland, Mass., to Brewster.

Van loved fishing for striped bass and sailing a variety of boats. He painted watercolors and wrote stories for many years. He was an avid golfer and designed a backyard golf course. Limited by macular degeneration and Parkinson’s disease, in later years he created collages and continued writing stories by dictation. His art and writing express his abiding love for the Brewster shoreline.

Van is survived by his wife of 53 years, the former Barbara Clement; a son, Philip, and Philip’s wife, Patricia; a daughter, Judith ’78; and his grandchildren, Abigail and Caleb.