Marrin dePicabia '22 died on May 8, 2000.

William Wallace Daniel '73 died on September 5, 2000, of injuries he suffered when hit by a cab on Park Avenue at East 76th Street on September 3. Mr. Daniel was the son of novelist Margaret Truman, the only child of President Truman, and the late Clifton Daniel, the former managing editor of The New York Times.

As reported in the Times, Mr. Daniel was the second of four brothers and is survived by his mother, his older brother Clifton Truman Daniel '71, and his younger brothers Harrison Gates Daniel and Thomas Washington Daniel '80. Mr. Daniel's friends and colleague recalled his good humor. "He was always the captain of everyone else's good time," said Mimi Gaber. "He was always arranging something or doing something spontaneous."

Mr. Daniel was a psychiatric social worker at the New York State Psychiatric Institute at Columbia University. He was the coordinator and a chief researcher for a study aimed at reducing risky sexual behavior among mentally ill men at risk for H.I.V. infection. Dr. Ezra Susser, chairman of the epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia, said that Mr. Daniel's co-workers did not know he was the grandson of a president. "We had no idea who he was," Dr. Susser said. "He never told anyone. I guess he wanted to be known for his work, not his family background."

Thomas H. Bolkcom died in November 2000. Both of his sons, Bret '92 and Jess '94, attended St. Bernard's through the ninth grade. A fund has been established in Mr. Bolkcom's memory to enhance the ninth grade students' year with cultural and travel opportunities. If you would like to make a contribution, or for further information, please contact Christina Evans at (212) 289-8331.

Lieutenant Commander J.C. Jenkins, Royal Navy (1920-2000)
Dorice Kendall (née Jenkins), daughter of the founder of St. Bernard's, writes of her younger brother:

My brother Jack was born in New York, at 1155 Park Avenue (my father didn't live in the school until some years later). My mother had made sure that my elder brother and I were born in England, especially as both my parents were born in Brussels. But for some reason Jack arrived in New York, and later in life was able to work both in the British Royal Navy and at the American Embassy in London. We used to go back and forth between New York and England in the 1920s and after the ship had docked he was the only one of us allowed to go through as a "US citizen"; the rest of the family were "aliens!" In New York we were pushed around by Nanny in an enormous English twin pram--which apparently was a strange sight. The wind that rushes between the skyscrapers once blew us, and the pram, over, though we were rescued by kind passers-by. Fresh air was believed vital for a baby, so Jack was put in a basket hooked outside the window of our apartment. We tobogganed in Central Park and went for holidays at the Rangeley Lakes in Maine, where my elder brother learnt to swim attached to a plank (by the time you lost the plank it was hoped you knew how to stay afloat!). We ate mounds of raspberries and watched for chipmunks. Jack had a splendid American godmother, Mrs. Bowring, who was a mother at St. Bernard's; one of his godfathers was Sir Arnold Hodson, soldier and colonial governor in Africa and the Falkland Islands, who once sent him a tiger skin from Africa.

We moved to Dinard in France in the mid-1920s, and for three months in the summer rented a house in Broadstairs, Kent (south-east England) where my father joined us from New York--and where many St. Bernard's masters and their families visited us. Jack and I were first taught at Miss Cook's school in Dinard, then at eight he crossed the Channel every term to attend Dumpton prep school in Broadstairs (the headmaster had been at Cambridge with my father). My father played in the fathers cricket match there every year. After Tonbridge School, Jack, aged 18, went to the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth to train as a naval engineer (known as a "plumber!"). This was in 1939. He was in the same "term" as Prince Philip, now Duke of Edinburgh. They knew each other well, married about the same time, and both had sons in 1948. Jack was looking forward to a reunion at Dartmouth in July 1999, but sadly was not well enough to attend.

After Dartmouth Jack trained in Plymouth during the terrible bombing of World War II, then was stationed all over the world. He was a great shopper. We could get very little in England during rationing--nail varnish was totally unobtainable, but ships used to be painted with bright orange varnish, and he brought me back some of that as nail varnish! I also remember the fantastic shoes he brought me from Australia. His last ship was H.M.S. Victorious, which was attacked by two kamikaze pilots in 1945. He later worked at the U.S. embassy in London and then, having retired, at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London, near where he lived. Although he didn't attend our father's school, I have a photograph of us with my father, taken in the early 1920s at the St. Bernard's Sports Day, where Jack, aged about four, wears a St. B. sash.

The Rev. Dr. David H.C. Read, trustee at St. Bernard's from 1977 to 1983 and father of Rory '83, died January 7, 2001. Dr. Read was the pastor of Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church from 1956 until 1989. Dr. Read was born in Cupar, Fife, Scotland on January 2, 1910, and he studied at the University of Edinburgh. In World War II he served as a chaplain in Britain's Highland Division and was captured by the Germans at Dunkirk. He spent the rest of the war being shuttled from one prisoner-of-war camp to another.

Dr. Read emerged from the camps famous because three books of sermons he delivered in the camps had been smuggled out and published. He became the chaplain at the University of Edinburgh, and from 1952 to 1956 he was chaplain to the Queen of England, when she was in Scotland. He then went to Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church, following in the tradition of Henry Sloane Coffin and George Buttrick. There he brought an outspoken approach to contemporary issues. "The worst sin is dullness," Dr. Read once told Time magazine. Time said in 1979, "If there is any one prince of the Protestant pulpit these days, it is Read." He published more than thirty books of his sermons, and delivered regular radio sermons, some broadcast nationally. Dr. Read went on to become active in working for human rights around the world and pressing for a freeze on nuclear arms. He was a leader in the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, which he described as "a sort of religious version of Amnesty International."

He is survived by his wife, Patricia Gilbert-Reed, and his son, Rory, of London.

In October 1999, Benno C. Schmidt died at the age of 86. He was the right-hand man of the financier John Hay Whitney, a pioneering venture capitalist, an important backer of biotechnology ventures, a New York civic leader, and the head of the Federal Government's war on cancer.

In the 1960s Mr. Schmidt became heavily involved in New York civic affairs, as a trustee of the Whitney Museum of American Art, chairman of the Fund for the City of New York, chairman of the Bedford-Stuyvesant Development and Services Corporation, and later, chairman of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Mr. Schmidt came to national prominence in the 1970s, when he was appointed by President Richard M. Nixon to serve as chairman of the President's Cancer Panel. He also served as an informal health-policy adviser to several Presidents.

And at St. Bernard's, which all five of his sons attended, he was also a great force. In 1951, when there were 215 boys at school, Mr. Schmidt joined the board of trustees, a position he held until 1966. While a trustee, he was instrumental in having a stage built in the small gym, still used for assemblies. He also secured the school's first endowment of $80,000.

Mr. Schmidt's survivors include four sons, Benno, Jr., Ralph and John, all of New York, and William, of Sarasota, Fla.; three stepchildren, Ruth Fleischmann and Stephen Fleischmann, both of New York, and James, of Philadelphia; 15 grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. A fifth son, Thomas, died in 1966.

No. 26, Winter 2001, page 21