L. Clagett Beck ’31

L. Clagett Beck died of an aneurysm Sept. 10, 1996, at the Anne Arundel Medical Center in Baltimore, Md. Dr. Beck was 87. He came to Princeton via Lawrenceville. He earned his MD at Johns Hopkins in 1935.

As a physician he worked for the Dept. of the Interior in St. Croix. In 1939 he moved to Kauai, where he served as a physician on a sugar plantation. In 1942 he joined the Straub Clinic in Honolulu, where he practiced internal medicine until he retired in 1976. Lured out of retirement, he became physician at the U.S. Kwajalein Missile Base in the Marshall Islands until 1980, when he returned to Maryland, making his home on Gibson Island.

He was an avid yachtsman from childhood, and was an officer of yacht clubs on Hawaii and Kwajalein. Clag was a past president of the Gibson Island Historical Society.

His useful life brought comfort and healing to hurting patients living on the two great oceans, and elsewhere. He was a loyal son of Princeton. He is survived by his wife, Virginia Colen Beck, two sons, one daughter, seven grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren. The Class of '31 is proud of him, and extends its sympathy to Ginny and to their children.

The Class of 1931