Raymond Smith Willis Jr. ’28 *33

PETE WILLIS died Nov. 24, 1991, at his home in Monroe Village, Jamesbung, N.J. He had served on the faculty of Princeton University for 43 years as a professor of Spanish. Pete was born in Orizaba, Mexico, and lived for several years, in his youth, in Mexico City and Barcelona. He went to prep school at Andover, and at Princeton he majored in history and was a member of Terrace Club.

After college Pete went on to the Princeton University Graduate School and received his Ph.D. in 1933. He started as an instructor in Spanish in 1932 and became an assistant professor in 1937. He spent four years during WWII in the U.S. Navy, as a district intelligence officer in New York, Washington, and Trinidad, B.W.I., and then was acting naval attache in Lisbon. He returned to his teaching post at Princeton in 1946, became associate professor in 1948, and full professor in 1952. He retired in 1975, Pete wrote, or was coauthor of, nine books dealing with Spanish and Portuguese grammar and literature and with the medieval epic poem "El Libro de Alexander." At different times he was a visiting professor of Spanish at Harvard, Rutgers, Penn, Bryn Mawr, and Univ. of Wyoming.

Pete was married to Margaret Osgood Dec. 17, 1932. She survives him, as do a son John and two stepgrandchildren. Pete was distinguished for his scholarship in medieval Spanish literature, and for his contribution to the development of the Special Program in European Civilization at Princeton. Many classmates will remember Pete as a genuine friend, and the deep sympathy of the Class is with Margaret and John.

The Class of 1928