Rusling Wood Jr. ’34

Rus Wood, the organizer and leader of our popular '34 Retreads jazz group that entertained us at reunions past, died Oct. 2, 1996, at Eastern Long Island Hospital. Formerly of Montclair, N.J., he moved to the North Fork in 1977. And he kept up his "tootling," on clarinet and sax, as a member of the Greenport (concert) Band and the East End Rhythm Band, which played for Southold Seniors groups. "I'm sure my mother and father are smiling on all this," he wrote a friend, "since they were deeply involved in music, she as a diva at the Metropolitan Opera, he as a singer and pianist."

Before he retired in 1977, Rus was the owner of Rusling Wood, Inc., a NYC firm specializing in lithographic advertising. During WWII, he served as a captain with the artillery component of the 70th Division in Europe.

Rus was predeceased by two wives, Mary F. Clark and Dorothy A. Reibling, and by a son, William A. Wood.

Surviving are his wife, Marion (Collins), whom he married in 1988; three daughters, Mary E. "Betsy" Lidgey, Marianne Pomper, and Madeline Rosenshein; a son, Rusling IV; nine grandchildren, and three greatgrandchildren. To them we offer our sincere sympathies.

The Class of 1934