John Chambers ’57

“To all his Princeton friends and classmates, he loved his association with all of you and with Princeton,” writes Susan Chambers of her husband of 31 years and our classmate. John died Nov. 25, 2017, while undergoing treatment for lung cancer. The family had expected him to survive. He just became weaker and weaker, Susan said.

John practiced law for 58 years, ranging from private practice to a large corporate practice to pro bono practice in his later years. He loved “untangling messes,” whether corporate or personal, Susan added. Some of his pro bono clients were “not exactly mentally stable, but most of them were jewels,” she said. He also enjoyed mentoring younger lawyers, and some of them went on to local and federal benches. In between, he ran a national fast-food chain and also a microfiche business. “Remember microfiche?” he asked once rhetorically.

“Most of all, he loved his five grandchildren,” Susan said. “Like many others,” he said, “not all have avoided the ravages of poor choices, but we love them.”

In our 60th-reunion book, he lamented the “future of the hordes of young people worldwide with too little to do.”

“He was not a person to sit and do nothing,” Susan added. “He loved to be active.” He attributed his enjoyment of his life to his Princeton education, first for drawing him away from science eventually to law, and because of the diversity of what we were offered.

He and Susan enjoyed many regular and mini-reunions. She hopes to attend another to thank “everyone who had such an impact on his life.”