Kenneth Biddle Atkinson ’28

KEN ATKINSON died at his home in Mclean, Va., Nov. 6, 1991. He had been slowed down by Parkinson's disease, but kept active in many ways, such as wintering in New Smyrna Beach, Fla., and attending the 63rd reunion of the Class of 1928 at Princeton in June 1991. Ken and his wife, Eileen, known to us as Ikey, set some kind of record in their later years taking a total of 18 or 19 vacations, of up to a month each, involving house exchanges, in Great Britain and Canada as well as in many parts of the U.S. These visits invariably produced stories of sometimes difficult, sometimes amusing experiences.

Ken went to Penn Charter School, and at Princeton he majored in engineering. He and Eileen Damon were married May 16, 1936. They had two sons, David '63 and Richard, and a daughter Lynn (Mrs. David Smolen). There are seven grandchildren. Ken's father, W. Petterson Atkinson, was 1889 at Princeton, and Ken was predeceased by a brother Cedric U. '21.

Ken worked in personnel administration for the Panama Canal Zone and the Commerce and State departments, and, during WWII, as a civilian officer with the Army Air Force in Washington. in 1950 he joined the U.S. Foreign Service, and held posts in Rio de Janeiro, Rangoon, and Birmingham, England.

Ken was an enthusiastic Princetonian, and he and Ikey were faithful participants at many major and minor reunions. His classmates will miss one for whom they had great admiration and affection, and their sincere sympathy is with Ikey and their children.

The Class of 1928