The son of Edward Gieske ’29 and born in Baltimore, Jim came to us from Gilman School. At Princeton, he majored in biology, was in the Savoyards and the Pre-Med Society, and took his meals at Charter. He roomed with Skip Kestler and Gilman classmates Gus Lewis, Bill Woodward, and Warren Hills.
Following Princeton, Jim earned a medical degree at Johns Hopkins, where he met and married fellow student Judith Porter. After training in Boston, he joined the Navy and served as a medical officer at sea on a spy ship during the Vietnam War.
In 1973, he moved to Easton, where he was preceded by four generations of Chapmans, and he opened a pediatric thoracic surgical practice while Judi practiced pediatrics. He was a co-founder of the Delmarva Foundation for Medical Care (now Qlarant). In retirement he and Judi traveled widely in the Caribbean (a two-year sailing trip), and visited the Arctic and Antarctica, the Galapagos, and the canals of France by barge.
Jim is survived by Judi; sons Chapman, Hardy, and Porter; and four grandchildren.