John E. Deford Jr. ’38

Gus died of asthmatic bronchitis Dec. 18, 2004, at his longtime Baltimore home.

Before he was 18, Gus lived in nine different homes and apartments in the Baltimore area, among them Greenwood, a residence his father built that is now the headquarters of the Baltimore County Board of Education. He graduated from Princeton after attending the Calvert and Gilman schools.

During World War II he served as a captain in the Army Air Force, flying numerous supply missions from England to France. Because supply planes were unarmed then, he sometimes tried to shoot down German "buzz bombs" with a rifle or handgun.

Postwar he worked in commercial banking at the former Equitable Trust Co., and later opened up Deford & Co. in Baltimore, specializing in reprints of law books and genealogical works. A member of the Elkridge Club, Gus won its golf championship in 1948 and was runner-up five times in subsequent years. He also raised and showed Hungarian hunting dogs, known as Vizlas, and hunted waterfowl.

His wife, Margaret, predeceased him. He is survived by two sons, John E. Jr. and Cooper, a sister, and four grandchildren, to whom the class extends its deep sympathy.

The Class of 1938