Richard Wesley Lawrence Jr. ’31

Dick died on Feb. 6, 2002, in Elizabethtown, N.Y. He was 91.

He was a graduate of the Riverdale School, Princeton, and Columbia Law School. Dick practiced law for six years in NYC, prior to serving in the Army Air Corps.

Dick resumed his practice of law and became the chairman of Printers Ink Publishing and Bankers Commercial Corp. In 1947 he moved to the Adirondacks, where he became deeply involved in education. In Elizabethtown he helped found the Crary Foundation, which provided scholarships for Adirondack students to pursue higher education. Dick served the foundation as president for 27 years. He was also founder of the Council of Councils of N.Y. State Universities and the Essex County Historical Society, as well as a trustee of the N.Y. State Historical Assn. and the Elizabethtown Library.

Long active in the cause of conservation, Dick was appointed by Gov. Nelson Rockefeller in 1961 to be the first chairman of the Adirondack Park Agency. The park became a preserve nearly the size of Vermont and the largest parkland in the US.

Dick was predeceased by his first wife, Marjorie Fitch, in 1945; by his second wife, Elizabeth Hand Wadhams, in 1987; and by his daughter, Ruth L. Wilson, in 1991. He is survived by two daughters, Alida L. Currey and Elizabeth W. Lawrence, two granddaughters, and three great-grandchildren. The class extends its deepest sympathy to his family and friends.

The Class of 1931