Richard H. Sharrett ’50

Dick died April 29, 2019, in Edison, N.J.

He graduated from The Pennington School. At Princeton he majored in biology and was awarded the Hibben Scholarship. He lettered in lacrosse, was active in the Evangelical Fellowship, and belonged to Prospect.

Dick completed four years at Penn School of Medicine and a residency in internal medicine with the Veterans Administration. After two years in the Army in Germany, he returned to the United States and set up medical practice in Plainfield, N.J. His practice included house calls and night calls when these were rare. He maintained his practice until health problems forced his retirement in 2006.

He cherished the home he and his wife’s family built in Vermont. There he enjoyed fishing, skiing, and hiking with his children. At age 50 he took up sailboarding.

He painted in watercolors and wrote poetry. In his bio for our 50th he included a poem titled “Shells,” whose opening lines best describe his career as a physician and as a person: “Some search the beaches to seek and to save only the perfect ones. But I have learned to love those that are broken.”

Dick is survived by his wife of 57 years, Betty; three children; and seven grandchildren.