Wilbert Joseph Shinn ’33

Joe Shinn died in Easton, Md., Oct. 16, 1996, two days after his 86th birthday. He lived in Princeton for many years, graduated from Princeton H.S., attended Hun School, and lived at home during college.

After college he spent two years surveying and then joined the New Jersey Geodetic Dept. He taught at Proctor Academy in Andover, N.H., from 1939-42. During WWII he was a training supervisor at Grenier Air Force Base. After the war, he was a licensed land surveyor and professional planner for the State of New Jersey and was an expert at laying out subdivisions.

At our 20th he reported "a profitable hobby of restoring old farmhouses and shapely waterborne craft such as yawls, dinghies, and so forth." That helps explain why since 1978 Joe lived on Maryland's Eastern Shore. There he faithfully attended all Princeton functions and also those of the St. Andrews Society. A friend reported, "You should see the two of us in our kilts."

Joe's first wife, Alice Thompson Shinn, died in 1969. He is survived by his wife, Lorna Carlin Shinn, whom he married in 1973, and by three children, Pamella S. Wooley, Peter S., and Melissa, four stepchildren, Nona, Jane, Judith, and John Chadwick, six grandchildren, and one great-grandson.

The Class of 1933