James J. Coale III ’37

A man of many careers, Jim Coale died Mar. 7, 1995, at Broadmead, a retirement community in Maryland. His wife, Marietta, had died in 1974. Of a predominantly Princeton family, he left three daughters, Martha, Mary ’72, and Patience, brother Ansley ’39, and five grandchildren.

At Hotchkiss, Jim was on the class football team and in the choir. At Princeton, he majored in English and was in the choir and glee club, was trea­surer of the Presbyterian Young People’s Society, and was on the wrestling squad. After graduation, he followed in his father’s footsteps and got his B.D. at Union Theological Seminary in N.Y.C. and for four years served in churches in Brooklyn and Baltimore. He entered the Navy in 1945, and after attending Russian language school and rising from seaman 1/c to lt. (j.g.), he served as a liaison in Berlin between the occupation forces of the Soviet Union and the U.S. As a civilian, in Bonn, he was economic secretary and deputy secretary general of the Allied High Commission for Germany, in the State Dept. In 1952, he made teaching his career, first with the Hampshire Country School in Rindge, N.H. In 1954, he was at Berkshire, where he taught math and chemistry and coached the wrestling team. Finally, he worked 23 years at Oldfields School in Glencoe, Md. He retired in 1987. Our condolences go to the girls and Ansley.