John Franklin Coburn Jr. ’34

Bud, having lived a life he once described as "interesting and exciting, as well as constructive," died Aug. 21, 2002, at the age of 91. Since his retirement from "all commercial activities" in 1974, he lived with his wife, Mary (Venning), in Sarasota, Fla., with a summer place in Chatham, Mass. In 1998 they moved to a retirement community in Needham, Mass., to be near their three sons and their families.

Bud's business career was varied. After six years with Glidden Co. in Cleveland, he spent the war years as an inspector of naval materiel in DC and Binghamton, N.Y. There followed four years with Archer-Daniels-Midland in Minneapolis. From 1959-69 he and Mary lived in Peru, where he managed a sperm whaling company he had put together, and developed a port near Camana, which soon ranked second among that country's fishing ports, providing hundreds of jobs.

Surviving, besides Mary, are three sons, John F. III, Ralph, and Andrew, and their wives and children. "Life," Bud once wrote, "has been very, very good for this member of our class."

The Class of 1934