John K.M. Hayes ’52

John was born in China, where his father John D., who was a member in the Class of 1910, and mother were Presbyterian missionaries. All of them were interned by the Japanese in the Philippines for three years and were then part of a Japanese/American prisoner exchange. John later graduated from the Sidwell Friends School and came to Princeton to major in English and join Court. He was on the 150-pound crew and roomed with Norman Gilbert.

John spent four years as a Navy electronics technician, then earned a master’s degree from Boston University in history in 1961 and a master’s degree from Harvard in Asian Studies in 1963. He pursued work as a teacher of computer programming at Exeter and from 1971 until 1990 was chief programmer for the Perini Corp.

Upon retiring John took up a personal interest in auto-insurance reform and was elected a member of the Belmont (Mass.) Town Democratic Committee. For fun he and his wife, Jocelyn, went to their cottage on Mount Desert Island.

John died Nov. 5, 2019. The class sends Jocelyn its condolences and our appreciation of John’s Naval service to our country.