William Burgoyne Nichols ’39

Belatedly we learned that Bill died Dec. 4, 2002. We have no way of knowing the cause or the circumstances. When we last heard from him, he told us that he and his wife spent the winter in Florida and the summer at Heritage Village in Southbury, Conn.

Bill had majored in civil engineering, so it's not surprising that he began World War II as a lieutenant with the Army Corps of Engineers in the Alaskan Department, later becoming a captain in ordnance, assigned to headquarters in the Pentagon. From 1946-50 he was an industrial engineer with Pan American Airways, leaving to join Allied Aviation International Corp., (an aircraft handling and servicing company) at Kennedy Airport, where in 1962 he was named comptroller. In our 50th yearbook he called himself a survivor who was still able to walk and play 18 holes of golf, swim for miles, ski the expert slopes, and to ride his bicycle on pleasant excursions downhill and to flat areas and not-so-pleasant uphill ones.

Bill and his wife, Virginia, were married in 1945. Virginia died about a year after Bill. They left one son, Ross, and one grandchild.

The Class of 1939