After '58 - John Petrozzi

After the Prep, I attended Saint Peters College with a partial scholarship from a local community organization. Among many activities, I captained a young  fencing team with a Hungarian coach who traveled from N.Y, twice a week for practice.  It was a great experience in a fairly new sport at St. Peter's.

I received my medical degree from the State University of New York Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse and interned at Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia.  During the internship, I met a lovely Jefferson nursing student named Dottie who I was destined to marry after my first year of residency. 

I was fortunate to have completed my residency in dermatology at the hospital of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, a program recognized as one of the best in the country. After completion of my residency, I served two years in the army as chief of dermatology at Fort Campbell army hospital in Kentucky. 

Subsequently I returned to the South Jersey area and accepted a position as chief of dermatology at the Philadelphia VA hospital and rejoined the faculty at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. I also started a private practice in South Jersey. 

As a faculty member, I published 50 articles in dermatology and lectured nationally in the field of psoriasis. I also taught the Penn  medical students, Podiatry students and the Penn  dermatology residents,  and became a full professor of dermatology, and also served as the president of the Philadelphia Dermatological Society.

While all this was going on, Dottie and I raised four children and lived on a lake in Medford lakes, NJ where I subsequently served as president of the Medford lakes Colony Club Association. As my private practice in Voorhees, NJ grew, I stepped down from my position at the Philadelphia VA hospital, but remained on the dermatology faculty and teaching at Penn.

As the children grew and left the household , we downsized and moved to Haddonfield NJ. I retired in 2006 and have wintered with Dottie in Naples FL for the last 17 years. We have 6 grandsons, but no granddaughters, and continue to live full time in Haddonfield. I enjoy golf at our local Tavistock Country Club and am proud to proclaim that I have had three holes-in-one - mostly luck - and not an indication of any great golf talent.

Since retiring, Dottie and I have enjoyed travel to France, Italy, Egypt, China, Japan, Turkey, Spain and have cruised to many ports including the French Riviera, Portugal, Denmark, Sweden, Greece, Germany and Russia, among others. Traveling is what makes retirement so much fun.

Looking back over my career, I firmly believe that my four years at the Prep greatly prepared me for future accomplishments and embedded the Jesuit values in my life that have persisted to the present day.

Robert (Bob) Pipchick - Born and raised in Jersey City.

After Prep I went to Holy Cross College, Worcester, MA where I had a hybrid History/Political

Science major. I joined Air Force ROTC, was a broadcast engineer for the on-campus radio

station and was co-manager of the ice hockey club. The club helped ice hockey survive at Holy

Cross and just a few years later it became a varsity sport. During summers, I worked in my

uncle’s hot warehouse in Newark loading and unloading trucks.

After college, I was assigned to Bolling AFB in Washington, DC. This was not a typical junior

officer assignment. 2nd lieutenants were rare and there was no on base housing. Colonels were

much more common. I shared an apartment in Arlington, VA with a fellow Cross graduate close

to the Arlington Cemetery and the Key Bridge into Washington. I was a Personnel Officer and

worked in an office. Except that I wore a uniform, I felt more like a civilian than a military

person. I went to St Stephen’s Church on Pennsylvania Ave in the District where supposedly JFK

sometimes went. There was an active young adults’ group at the church, and I joined in with

them. We held dances, went on outings and weekends. One time was to Rehoboth Beach DE

and another was sailing at Annapolis. That was the first time I went sailing and loved it. I

determined to do it some more when I had a chance.

Jim Heaney was working for NASA in Greenbelt, MD while I was at Bolling, and we would meet up occasionally and travel up to NJ on weekends. We managed to buy an old home-made small cabin cruiser boat and keep it at Bolling and go cruising on the Potomac.

Those times came to an end but not before the FIRST of my several eyewitnesses to history. While at Bolling, President Kennedy was assassinated. Along with some friends we visited the Capitol area to see the thousands of people waiting to enter. After the funeral the procession proceeded from the cathedral and over the Arlington Bridge. My apartment was not far from the bridge. I went down to the bridge with very few people there. The horse drawn carriage passed right in front of me on its way to the cemetery.

My time at Bolling was cut short. I received a notice about a reassignment to an APO in Germany. The strange thing was that the APO was an Army Post at Karlsruhe. I tried to find out more about it, but no one seemed to know anything more than it was an Army Post. I boarded a plane at McGuire AFB in January 1964 knowing only that I was headed to Germany. I left on a Friday evening with a plane full of dependent families (crying babies) and did not sleep. When I arrived at Ramstein AB, I went to the USAF transportation office and received train tickets to Karlsruhe. I took a bus to the train station and waited for the train. I still hadn’t slept since Thursday night but managed to doze a little on the two-hour trip to Karlsruhe.

It was a bright Saturday afternoon, and a lot of people were at the station. I boarded a taxi and asked to go to the Flughafen. He took me to the Army Post. There was a small Army airfield at the Post. I went into a small building and found a few Army enlisted troops. I showed them my orders and they had no idea where I was supposed to go. They called the Post operator but that person did not know any more. Finally, one of the Army personnel said that He thought something different was happening at the RCAF air base about 30 miles south. He went up to the small Army control tower to call the Canadiens. He came back in a few minutes to say the USAF was looking for me and an Air Force sergeant was coming to pick me up. FINALLY! I knew where I was supposed to go.

The reason the USAF was at the RCAF air base was that the US was supplying nuclear weapons to NATO countries, but the US still had to retain possession until they were used. I very much enjoyed living and working with the Canadians. One of my fellow officers wound up getting married to a Canadian school teacher and we had a lifelong friendship. Much later I learned that after the Cuba crisis, JFK agreed to remove NATO missiles from Turkey. However, supplying the NATO air forces with nuclear capability took the place of the missiles. ANOTHER eyewitness to history.

I finished my USAF tour in April 1965 and started with Dunn & Bradstreet a few months later. My territory as Credit Reporter was the northern half of Hudson County. I was living in Jersey City and taking the PATH to the D&B office. After leaving the office one evening and boarding the PATH, the train departed and after a few minutes stopped under the Hudson River. This was the first major electric blackout covering NY and New England. After three hours we walked back up the tracks to NYC. (eyewitness)

In April 1966, my father had a serious stroke from which he gradually recovered but he never worked again, and I was involved in his recovery.

My next job was the start of my government service as a contract trainee at Fort Monmouth. While working there I joined the NJ Air National Guard at McGuire AFB. This is when the NJ riots were occurring. We trained for crowd control, but the Army National Guard was much better prepared, and they were used.

In December 1967, my mother learned she had serious breast cancer and underwent surgery and other treatments. Fortunately, my grandmother and aunt lived in the same house so that I was not alone in caring for my parents.

A big change in 1968 for me was transferring from Fort Monmouth to a DoD contract administration office in Springfield. Of course, this meant I was much closer to home which was very important then.

1969 turned out to be a very eventful year. I resigned as a Captain from the NJANG and in September met the Love of my Life, Peg.

In 1970, my mother continued to become weaker and did pass away.

We planned to get married in 1971 and I continued with the DoD and my studies at Pace University, NYC for an MBA. We bought a house in Roselle Park so that my father could live with us.

Peg was able to study for a MS in Psychiatric Nursing at NYU and our daughter, Christine was born in 1974.

While working for the DoD I was promoted to be an Administrative Contracting Officer (ACO) responsible for Lockheed Electronics which was making the MK86 Gun Fire Control System (GFCS) for the Navy. During this time the Iran crisis developed. Iran was supposed to obtain some destroyers from the US with the MK86 and there were a group of Iranian sailors being trained by Lockheed. Normal communications were cut off with Iran including the sailors’ pay. The Navy arranged to send me pay checks for the sailors and I became their paymaster. (eyewitness) That lasted until the complete break with Iran. In 1979 was promoted to Supervisor of Contract Administration which was an interesting and challenging position. 

I could not advance much more with the Government and investigated industry. I found a position in government contract compliance with Ebasco Services Inc at Two World Trade Center. My office was primarily on the 93rd floor facing all of Manhattan, beautiful view. The first terrorist bombing happened while I was with Ebasco. (eyewitness). I was primarily involved with an EPA contract where Ebasco was responsible for investigating all contaminated sites east of the Mississippi. With that job, I traveled to various offices in the south and west.

Raytheon Engineers and Constructors took over Ebasco and I switched to offices in Lyndhurst where I worked on commercial contracts for the first time in my career which was a real learning experience for me. Spent a few years with Raytheon until they ran in to some financial problems and I was in their first round of layoffs.

I had a successful bounce to a job with Lockheed Martin. They had a contract for a major ($30m) software development system for the Army at Fort Monmouth. It was called “the Maneuver Control System." Before this I had little to do with computers and software. This was a constant learning experience for my five years with LM. It was often frustrating working with bunches of programmers, system engineers and system architects. (I never knew that software required architects.) It did not help that my direct boss was down in Maryland. That contract was ending, so I had to find a new job.

It happened that the Army at Picatinny Arsenal wea looking for contract personnel and I still had some contacts there from my previous work with DoD. So, I came full circle with the Army. I worked primarily on hiring contract engineers for the Armament Research and Development Center, ARDEC.

I then retired from the Government and investigated substitute teaching. When I applied for subbing, I submitted a certificate from the State and found out I was qualified to be a history home instructor. I then spent over 10 years teaching high and middle school world and American history.

Then when Covid started, I became a volunteer at the Union County Health Department for three months and then was paid for 15 months. (eyewitness)

Married to Peg with a daughter and a son and four grandsons and a granddaughter. (Ages from 20 to 2.)

I like to sail and have spent over 20 years sailing for a summer weekend with Jim Heaney. I am very interested in railroad history and Ukrainian history.

 Born a week after Pearl Harbor in Jersey City – like a lot of us, at the Margaret Hague hospital. I lived on Second street in a house that my grandparents had bought when they arrived from Italy in the early 1900’s. She had two siblings that also bought the house on either side. So we had family all around us. We walked to grammar school – Holy Rosary.

On to the Prep – ¾ mile or so, which I mostly walked, although the # 9 bus took over when it rained. And since I was an altar boy during high school, I helped our parish priest at Holy Rosary put on plays (stage hand – not acting). He would bring down some of his family – hairdressers – to help get everyone ready for the performance. One of those family members was Joann Vitale – and we just celebrated our 55th wedding anniversary.

After Prep, I joined many others heading up to St. Peter’s college – again the # 9 bus. After graduation , I did a short stint in the Air Force reserve, then started working in NYC at a textile firm in their management training program.

I married in Sept. 63, we moved to an apartment in Fort Lee, and had our first daughter (we have 3). The apartment got to be too small, so we had to start thinking of the next step… a house. Since I was working in NY and going to grad school at night there, we decided to stay close by. So, back to JC and Country Village. We bought a town house which served us well for 7 years.

In 1972, just as we were ready to head to Monmouth County, I changed jobs and became a manufacturer’s rep – selling different products from a variety of manufacturers. I specialized in the variety stores of the day – (our age might remember some of these – FW Woolworth, WT Grant, etc.) Within a couple of years, my focus was on a growing area – the discount stores – Kmart, Wal-Mart, etc.

Once the 70’s came upon us, these outlets started carrying food products which created a big area of growth. This change put me solely into food products, where I was approached by a German company that handled many products.

And shortly after that, the warehouse club business started to grow quickly. My concentration then went to that class of trade. I started doing business with Sam's club (division of Walmart), Price Club (now Costco).

My travels took me all over the country – mostly west coast, and to Europe frequently (mostly Germany) for trade shows. And my wife came with me most of the time (someone had to help me drink wine in Italy). For most of the last 30 years, I have worked out of my house – no commuting. Thank God!!

In 1972, we moved to Lincroft, then in 1977 to Colts Neck, where we bought a house on cull-de-sac. When I told my dad about this, he said “you mean a dead end, don’t you?” Back down to earth in a hurry!! Then, the most recent move 18 years ago to Sea Girt to be closer to the beach.

We are fortunate to have 3 daughters, all close by. And there are 2 grandsons (the oldest and youngest) and 3 granddaughters.

Born in Elizbeth NJ, I went to elementary school at a four-room school situated beneath the Church of the Immaculate Conception, where two grades were simultaneously taught by one nun. There were about a dozen kids in each class. One of the families in the parish were the Bells, who were blessed with seventeen children, including two sets of twins. As a result, there was always at least one Bell in every class, and therefore at least two Bells in each classroom. Obviously, you never messed with a Bell kid.

My most vivid memory of grammar school was playing a game called Two Feet Off during recess in the grassy field next to the church. One poor soul was chosen to be “it”. The entire rest of the male student body then convened at one end of the field and on a given signal ran to the other end. The ‘it” person’s job was to tackle one of the runners, getting his feet totally off the ground and if successful, hollering “Two feet off!” The tackled person brushed himself off and joined the “it” person in mid field, and the gang ran back and forth across the field trying to evade the tacklers. This melee continued until there was only one runner left

who was declared the winner.

My parents sent me off to Prep to follow my cousin (and hero) David Payne, who was four years ahead of me. Living in Elizabeth, I took the train into Jersey City to either Grove Street or Exchange Place, depending on which train I caught. My favorite was the 8:10 out of Elizabeth, which got me to Exchange Place with barely enough time to run to school but was quite special; it was a through train from Bay Head and Point Pleasant and therefore was pulled by an actual steam engine. I loved that train.

Being a dayhop out-of-towner, I still regret missing out on the camaraderie of the lucky kids who lived near the school. Train to school in the morning; train home in the afternoon; no playtime with the rest of the guys. In our twice daily Latin classes Freshman year, alphabetical seating placed me just behind Dominic S., a very nice but very burly fellow who was the unfortunate favorite target of Father Murray’s expert and fearsome wielding of the window-pole lance. My fear of becoming collateral damage in one of his charges down the aisle was only matched by the quiet terror of Mr. Duffy’s slow burn when he really got on a roll in Geometry class. On the other side of the coin was jolly Mr. Kennedy, whom I found absolutely delightful as he “punished” minor miscreants with assignments to write an essay on How to cut down a dangling participle, or How to crochet a locomotive.

After graduation, I followed Cousin Dave to St Peter’s College, where the Glee Club provided me with the closest thing I ever had to a Fraternity experience. While at a joint concert at Ladycliff, a women’s college near West Point, I met my first wife Alicia. The marriage lasted thirteen years during which we lived on the Metedeconk River and had three lovely chilren together. My older son Bill teaches Math near Princeton, my second son Tony has his own construction inspection company, supervising roadwork projects mostly on the Parkway and the Turnpike. I like to kid him that his job entails nothing more than watching other people work and then complaining about it. My youngest, Liz, is lead vocalist and owner of a band called Daddy Pop (see her on You Tube) which plays at lavish weddings and frequently appears at various AC casinos. I am very proud of all three.

My first job was a two-year sentence teaching at Fords Junior High in Woodbridge. It was a baptism of fire. After having attended only Catholic schools, where chattering students could be calmed and silenced with a simple sign of the cross to begin class, I was now at a loss. Ha! That did not work here, at all. 

Being in close proximity to Jamesburg Reformatory, we had a goodly number of students who were either on their way into that establishment or recently out and waiting for paperwork to be completed. A standing joke was that when a kid missed class for a couple of days, it was probably because his trial had come up. Consequently, we had a lot of older kids who were just waiting to age out, quite a few of whom drove to school – somewhat unusual for a Junior High. To put the icing on the cake, they had nicer cars than we did.

It is hard to describe the general ambience there. The Principal, Mr. Conniff, had a heart condition and had been advised to avoid stressful situations. As a result, he was very seldom seen in the building, leaving “control” in the hands of the Vice-Principal, a sweet matronly woman, who I was told had lost a child at birth, which reportedly explained her generously permissive or even submissive attitude towards misbehaving students. Mrs. White had a wooden leg, and now and then some delinquent type would stick a thumb tack into it claiming that it was to help keep her stockings up. Discipline was virtually abdicated by those in charge, leaving the rare few strong and experienced teachers to hold the ship together. From time-to-time police officers would arrive at the school, looking for kids who had cut class to go rifling through nearby houses or create some other havoc.

Perhaps because of that atmosphere, the faculty were extremely close knit, with the majority retiring both Wednesday AND Friday afternoons to a nearby tavern to decompress. Monday was bowling night, and yes, there was a bar at the local lanes. Faculty parties were fun. The year after I left, I saw in the paper that a couple of students, whose names I recognized, had burned down one of the three wings of the school. I was not really sorry I missed that. 

Moving to the Shore in 1966 to teach at Point Pleasant Boro High School was like transferring from Purgatory to Heaven. I spent the remainder of my 38 years there in teaching and supervisory positions. I loved it. The kids were terrific throughout every one my years there. I have recently started going back for their reunions. 

My second wife was a Jersey City girl, Haroldine Sharrock. Her father had been expecting a boy and intended to name him after Msgr. Harold Fitzpatrick of St. Bridget’s parish. When she failed the physical, her father thought, ”well, there’s Gerald and Geraldine, so why not Haroldine.” Poor girl absolutely hated her name We called her Harrie. She taught Fifth Grade at Hooper Avenue Elementary in Toms River for twenty-nine years, and we shared forty years of rarely uninterrupted bliss until her passing in March of 2019.

Harrie and I worked twenty-four years at Island Beach State Park, all summer long and weekends in the Spring and Fall even some random days in the Winter. It was a magical place, and the source of many wonderful memories and amusing stories that I will not burden you with here. We lived on a lagoon in the Shelter Cove section of Toms River, where we kept a collection of sail and power boats. Sailing was our primary recreation, and our powerboat was our preferred method of transportation, as we avoided the swell of visitors during the Summer. We “retired” from Island Beach in 1990 to “practice” for retirement, replacing the State Park income with my evening position as adjunct professor at Ocean County College. 

We had been sailing a 24foot Paceship Westwind for many years, which we were now free to take on long cruises. Each summer we sailed our little boat at about four knots – for 35 to 45 days, alternating each year between sailing North to Block Island, Martha’s Vinyard and Newport, or South to the wide expanse of the Chesapeake Bay and its many enchanting towns and tributaries. If you can stay married after essentially living in a floating pup tent for over a month, you know you have something Golden. We did. Later, we got into sail racing and joined Toms River Yacht Club, where I was Commodore in 1996. Our boat was a pocket cruiser, not really competitive for PHRF racing, so I crewed, often along with Harrie, for many years on Ensigns and E Scows with occasional positions on A Cats.

In 2000, we moved up to a 40-foot Sundeck Trawler, and named it Key Player, as it was meant to play in the Keys. We did so for a few years, slowly meandering up and down the Coast from Barnegat Bay to the Keys and Florida’s Gulf Coast as the seasons changed. We called it winterizing the boat by latitude adjustment. We anchored mostly at Islamorada and Boot Key Harbor in Marathon, with occasional trips to Plantation, No Name and Key West. We intended many times to make the hop to the Bahamas, but never found the proper weather window when we were on the East Coast. 

One year, instead of following the East Coast all the way down to the Keys, we hooked a right at Stewart, went up the St. Lucie River, across Lake Okeechobee, and down the Caloosahatchee to Cape Coral to visit a friend. Along the way, we discovered a Marina called Marinatown, a half mile long canal parallel to the River, with 135 livaboard slips and 4 bar/restaurants along the path. It became one of our favorite stops along the way to the Keys. We eventually kept the boat there year-round, taking three days between NJ and FL by truck instead of three weeks or more on the boat.

For many years, Harrie and I worked with Premier Racing, helping to run Key West Race Week and Miami Race Week, using wither Key Player as Committee Boat, or our 25’ Wellcraft Off Key as Gate Boat, depending upon their needs. Taking the rhumb line 135 miles well offshore from Sanibel Light at the end of the Caloosahatchee to Key West in a 25 foot boat in January was sometimes challenging, but Harrie was the consummate yachtswoman and loved (almost) every minute, having learned to walk on her father’s 34 foot Richardson while cruising to  We found our NJ visits getting shorter and shorter each year, so in 2007, we sold our NJ house and purchased a two-floor condo overlooking our boats. (After seventeen years in the position, I appear to be President for Life on our Owners’ Association.) We became full time Florida residents in 2007 and remained so until after Harrie’s passing.

A year later, through a random quirk of fate, I reconnected to an old friend, Barbara Kelly, who had taught Business and Special Ed in Point, and whose husband, Dick, taught with me in the Math Department. We had not seen nor heard from one another since we all retired in 2000. After an absence of a dozen years from NJ, I drove up to visit some friends and relatives, and also to meet my old friend again after all those years. As both of our spouses had passed, we decided to spend some time together to catch up with what had been going on in each other’s lives in all that time. The catching up was so pleasant that we spent the rest of the Summer together. At Summer’s end I invited her to come back to Florida with me. “OK”’ said the lady, and Barbie has been a delightful partner ever since. We now own a house near the Manasquan River a few hundred yards beyond the city limits of Point Pleasant, our old stomping grounds, and spend the four months of good weather there, returning to Florida when the New Jersey weather no longer “suits our clothes.”

At 84, I am not yet ready to quit racing sailboats. During the Summer, I campaign a Capri 25 with my buddy Gordon Nelson on out of TRYC (we Kill!), and the rest of the last 17 years I’ve raced a succession of boats with a group of kindred spirits called the Fort Myers Sailing Club with limited success: A Santana 20, which sank during a race in 2011 when the keel fell off(!), a Rhodes 22 which was destroyed by Ian in 2022, and now a gaff rigged cat boat named “bar bill” which has yet to prove her mettle. 

The Southwest Florida Gulf Coast is a wonderful place to live. Of course there’s no surf except during hurricanes, but also no snow. Please don’t tell anyone because it might start to get a little too crowded. Even counting my stint at FJH, which I suppose really wound up teaching me a lot about life, I consider myself to be an extraordinarily lucky fellow. I am still able to enjoy the fruits of this wonderful and fulfilling life, but without being able to claim credit for most of its high points. The many kindnesses of others and simple blind luck have supplied me most of my good fortune and deserve all the recognition.

Many thanks to Bill Kretzer for getting this thing started!

After spending four and a half years studying for the priesthood following graduation from Prep, I left the major seminary at Darlington with a bachelor’s degree in classical languages from Seton Hall (very useful in the marketplace), and decided to visit my grandmother in San Bernardino, CA before embarking on a new career path. 

It was 25 degrees in NY on Valentine’s Day in 1963 when I departed, and 72 degrees in LA when I landed, exhilarated by my first ride in a jet airplane (727), and the incredible weather. I decided then and there that I was not returning to NJ, and never did, except to attend graduate school at Rutgers and for occasional visits with family.

After a stint with a finance company as a collector and six months active duty with the Army Reserves, I was hired by the San Bernardino County Welfare Department as a social worker. After five years licensing foster homes for children and supervising public assistance programs, I decided to stay in the field of social work. I returned to NJ to attend graduate school at Rutgers, married to Marlene and toting a four month old baby boy.

Following graduation and armed with a Master of Social Work degree, we all returned to CA, and I resumed my work with the County, working for Child Protective Services and Adoptions, where I carried a caseload of older, hard to place children. Two years later, I moved over to the Department of Mental Health where I spent the next twenty years in various capacities, mostly working in and supervising alcohol and drug treatment programs. After obtaining my license as a psychotherapist, I managed the County’s 56 bed inpatient psychiatric facility for a time, but then decided to return to managing the alcohol and drug treatment programs.

We had three more kids, and I retired as the department Deputy Director in 1993. Since that time, I’ve worked as a hospital social worker in three different hospitals, and still do on-call work occasionally. I frequently hear the question, “Aren’t you retired yet” from co-workers, family and friends. I suppose that’s better than “I didn’t know you were still alive.”

In 1972, I was accepted as a candidate for the Permanent Diaconate program for the Diocese of San Diego, and was ordained a permanent deacon in 1975. I have served in what is now the Diocese of San Bernardino (split off from San Diego in 1978) for the last 43 years. I baptized two of our children, performed the marriage ceremony for our two sons and have baptized all seven of our grandchildren, who now range in age from 5 to 20. I opted to be simply the father of the bride for my two daughters.

Marlene and I met on a blind date and we’ve been married for 51 years. We enjoy a leisurely retirement in Yucaipa CA, where we’ve lived for the past 47 years. I still serve at our parish church, preaching homilies, baptizing babies and participating in the various liturgies. I have chanted the Exultet (Easter Praise) at the last 40 Easter Vigil services.

I’ve traveled to 27 different States, Mexico and Canada, but oddly enough I’ve never been to Florida or Hawaii, and have never been off the continent. I’ve led a pretty quiet and sedate life, and I’ve been told I’m a pretty boring fellow, but I love routine and find, for me, it’s a most tranquil way to live. Happily, Marlene feels the same way.

Yes, “Life was great in ‘58”, but it “ain’t so bad” now either.

 After Prep, I graduated from the University of Notre Dame with an electrical engineering degree in 1962 and then went into the Navy as I finished NROTC at Notre Dame. 

After a year of intensive study on missile and radar technology and training, I was assigned to the US Six Fleet flagship as the electronics officer which was homeported in the French Riviera. We cruised the entire Mediterranean on watch but also had the opportunity to visit and show the flag to many great cities around the Mediterranean.

After my tour of duty was complete, I joined the General Electrical company’s three-year manufacturing management program with extensive study and six six-month assignments around the company. I took my first permanent assignment as a manufacturing engineer in Utica New York, where I met my Norwegian wife.

During the next 42 years, had assignments in managing GE’s aerospace Micro electronics manufacturing and factory automation. I became one of the companies’ leaders in computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing.

In 1981, I transferred to beautiful Charlottesville Virginia to build and automate a new factory to make computer numerical controls (CNC) and process controls for all types of manufacturing automation. Once fully completed and running, a joint venture was formed with FANUC of Japan.

I was then assigned as US and Latin American sales manager for the FANUC CNC products Interfacing with every major machine tool builder in the assigned area. This last assignment was my most enjoyable and I retired at almost 69 years of age when the joint venture was dissolved so I could stay in Charlottesville Virginia.

I then had a wonderful opportunity to become a community scholar at the University of Virginia, where I spent the next three years in intensive study of Italian language, history, culture, and art.

During all these crazy times, pre-pandemic, I was able to often visit my two grandchildren in southeastern Pennsylvania and visit my wife’s family in beautiful Norway. 

 I left Prep headed for Notre Dame in early fall in the company of Gerry Drummond’s cousin Dennis Dwyer and his parents who were generous enough to include me in their car trip to South Bend. I arrived full of determination that quickly evaporated. It may have been a good destination for many but it was not one for me. The school was too regimented.

One example will suffice. If you got to Sunday mass late you would be met by an aged Father of the Holy Cross who would seize your student ID which you could only get back by seeing their equivalent of the Dean of Students. After having this happen, I learned that many avoided this by skipping mass altogether. They did not enforce attending mass but coming late was an offense. I had had enough and after completing the first semester, I decided that this was not the place for me and withdrew, heading home to Teaneck. I then took up a career as a greens keeper at a local country club and made plans to attend Fordham College in the Bronx in the fall.

Probably because I had already become accustomed to the Jesuit model of education, I found Fordham to be a good place to study and thrive. I will mention one special encounter that I had there that took me right back to Prep. I eventually noticed that the Dean of Men was our old friend Father John (Tex, as some of us called him) Murray. I dropped in to see him and found him to be most pleasant and relaxed. He was happy to see me and related that it was joy to deal with college students who, for the most part, were pretty serious and much easier to deal with than high school students. Don’t we all know that.

I fell in love with the study of History and majored in it. I also fell in love with a woman, and we became engaged. After several months, I discovered that was a mistake and thankfully it was soon all over. Because of a Google search I conducted about ten years ago, all I can say about that is: “Thank God! Thank God” Due to my “gap year” I graduated from college in June of 1963, a year later than most in the class of 58. My parents had told me that any further education I would get would be up to me. I applied to several graduate programs to study American History and settled on Penn State because they offered me free tuition and a modest stipend ($1450) that I could live on in exchange for my serving as a teaching assistant.

The break up of my engagement left me with a free summer and money that was intended for furniture in my pocket. Following Horace Greeley’s admonition, I headed West and spent the time visiting family and friends in Utah and Colorado. I had a wonderful time and saw a lot. On my long bus ride back East in mid August I thought that perhaps the study of Law rather than History would better suit me. As we know in those pre-Vietnam days we all looked forward to two years in the army, often in the Fulda Gap, and then release from military duty. Late on a Friday afternoon I went to Teaneck Armory and made an appointment to get a physical the next week in Newark. Next I wrote a letter to the chair of the History Department at Penn state informing him I was not coming.

The next day I turned on the TV and saw the first college football game of the fall of 1963. I do not recall who was playing but those kids in the stands looked as if they were having a lot more fun than I would have in the winter slogging around in the mud at an Army base in the South. I told myself I was a big dummy and that I ought to unwind things as quickly as I could. I mention all this because it marked a great change in the course of my life. Again I say “Thank God.” Monday morning at 8:00 I visited the friendly recruiting sergeant who tore up my papers. I next called the chair at Penn State who had not received my letter and was happy to know that he would not have to thrash around to find a substitute for me in section of American History. Then it was off to Penn State to share a house with three friends from Fordham and an Iona grad and take up our graduate studies. Those two years were some of the best in my life. We five all learned how to cook, shop, keep a house clean, and run it on a tight budget. I had an extra benefit. In the second year of graduate school I met the woman who was to become my wonderful wife.

By now you should have noticed that dumb luck played a significant role in my life. Meeting Marifé was no different. I was taking a Colonial History course in the fall and the professor announced that by Friday we should select our permanent seats for the semester. I always sat in the back row and in the seat next to the rear door there was a nice-looking woman named Joan. I simply sat in the seat next to that seat and awaited her arrival. The class commenced and she was not there but no worry. She would come. The professor had started his lecture, and a student opened the front door, started across the room and then reversed course, excused herself and left only to enter the room again through the rear door and plop right down in Joan’s seat. I was irritated with this person because she had upset my plans for romance for the fall session. Little did I know that she would provide me with love and romance for the rest of her life.

I soon learned that the smart, good looking woman next to me was Maria Fernanda Vallecillo from Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. We both lived in the same direction and fell into talk on the walk home. You will notice that I called her Marifé. In that generation about half of the young girls in Puerto Rico were named Maria and to avoid confusion each would create a nickname often by combining their first and second names.

It was my intention to obtain my MA in American History and then head to any law school that would give me a scholarship. Happily in the spring I learned that I was admitted to the School of Law at the University of Virginia with a full tuition scholarship. Marifé decided to take a job in DC at the Library of Congress where they valued her translation skills and advanced education.

We both moved south with the intention of marrying after I completed law school. On most weekends we alternated travelling between Charlottesville and DC. One weekend in October when we had not planned to travel I sat in the law library missing the woman I loved. I said to myself, “You are going to marry the woman any way so why not get up to DC now, propose to her and be done with it.” I jumped on a bus or train and was soon at her apartment door and proposed. We were married in the cathedral in Mayagüez in the spring of 1966 by a Jesuit physicist who worked in a nuclear reactor with Marifé’s father who was a health physicist.

Fortunately, I did well in law school, developed a new academic love in the study of tax law and found myself to be a popular candidate for a job. That is until it was discovered that I had a Puerto Rican wife. Cravath, Swaine & Moore was then regarded as one of the very best, if not the best, law firm in NYC. In the 1950s they had already gone through the angst of handling partners who did not want to share a partnership with Jews. Such partners were simply told they could leave before the Jew was admitted to partnership. Consequently, Cravath was more forward looking than many of its peers in the big firm environment. In 1968 they decided to break solidarity with the big NYC firms and bumped the starting salary up from $10,000 to $15,000 a year. Given that only a few law firms wanted a guy with a Puerto Rican wife and one of those that did was one of the best law firms in the country and it was paying the princely sum of $15,000 a year, off we headed to Manhattan.

Life on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in a terraced apartment with a doorman was new to both of us and any of our family members. It was fun to be young in NY with the city outside our door and money in our pockets. In 1969 our daughter Anne-Marie joined us in our one bedroom apartment. After my stalling as long as I could, Marifé got us looking for new quarters, this time in Ridgewood, NJ where I was able to ride the Weary Erie to Hoboken and hop on my old friend the Hudson and Manhattan Tube to the base of the then under construction World Trade Center. Life in Ridgewood and the practice of law at Cravath was all one could rightly expect. Yet I yearned to return to my original idea of being a college teacher, but this time in a law school rather than in a History department. Marifé and I both loved life in a college town so our search was primarily focused on again returning to one.

We eventually settled on the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. Life was good here and the Law School provided a good environment in which I could teach and write. We added two more children to the family, a boy William Andrew and a girl Christine Marguerite, Originally we thought we would stay only 3-5 years and then move on. 

Although I received a number of other offers of employment, we decided that we had a family friendly environment in an area that provided good cultural and athletic entertainment and settled down for the rest of our lives in Chapel Hill. Actually that is not all that accurate because academic visits and research leaves resulted in our living in Austin, Tuscaloosa, Charlottesville, Salt Lake City, Oxford, Taipei, Madrid and Sorrento. I did manage to author and co-author a number of books and articles on various tax and non-tax topics. Like most professors, I was given a chair. Standing for thirteen years was tiring.

Our children all went on to college and did additional studies thereafter. Anne-Marie is now a child psychiatrist in Apex, NC, Andrew works in IT at UNC Hospitals and Christine lives in Milton MA where she works in social media marketing. All are married and have given us seven grandchildren ranging in age from seventeen years to seven months.

Unfortunately, Marifé went to Duke Hospital for an endoscopy in 2013 where her intestine was torn and this was followed by faulty repair surgery in which a tear was missed or a new one was created. The surgeon had not ordered a CT scan for the surgery as the NIH tells one is the first step for such surgeries. Marifé lingered in the hospital for 438 days before dying. Through this I learned that medical mistake is the third leading cause of death in the US, accounting for about 9.5% of all deaths. The death certificate merely reports what finally brought life to an end, such as septicemia or hemorrhage.

About 0.75% of all who enter a hospital for a procedure will die from medical mistake. I mention this because we all should make our choices of doctors and hospitals with great care. I have taken the loss of Marifé rather hard, she was only one of three individuals that I met in an academic career whom I can consider a true intellectual with a lawyer/anthropologist at UNC and an Israeli historian being the other two.

In addition, she was a kind, loving, generous person. I and our children miss her very much. For the life of me, I have great difficulty understanding what drives so many in our society to reject, out of hand, those from other backgrounds and of different ethnicities. I think we were lucky at Prep to attend school with a group of great classmates who came from different nationalities in a city that was in the process of adapting to the entrance of differing ethnicities.  

Marion Tuttle sent in an After '58 Bio of her husband, Steve Tuttle. Please keep Steve in your prayers.

"Don't know if this is appropriate but thought I would forward a brief post 58 history of Steve Tuttle -- feel free to ignore it if it's not appropriate - unfortunately he won't know."

Marion Tuttle 

After graduation (and a summer job fighting poison ivy at a local cemetery,) Steve spent two years at St Peter's College, decided medicine was not for him, and joined two friends - Regis grads- at Assumption College in Worcester, MA.   Philosophy as a major, while interesting, didn't exactly prepare one for a business career so he spent 6 years paying health insurance claims for Prudential while he got his MBA from Rutgers and transferred into Pru's investment department, including a stint as president of Prudential's Minority Loan Program (SBA guaranteed minority loans under the Nixon administration.)  

23 years at Pru were enough and he switched to Irving Trust Co. in a division making equity investments.   When Irving was bought by Bank of New York, his small three-man group was spun off into MST partners, an equity investment firm with a 10-year horizon to spend the millions they had raised with the help of Bank of New York, their main investor.   By 2001 they had successfully sold off all their companies and Steve went into semi-retirement, leaving lots of time to play gentleman farmer and coach his sons and later their growing families.   

While all this was going on, Steve and the  girl he first dated at age 16 and married at 27 (breaking up with her numerous times and before he returned for good, making sure she had graduated from law school so she could keep him in the style to which he intended to become accustomed) had 4 natural sons and between the first and the second took in a foster child "for two weeks"  finally adopting  him when Jon was 27 after his birth father passed.) 

Steve's other sons include Stephen, Partner in Signet Financial Management; Brad, a writer and editor for Money and author of the definitive history of Newark: How Newark Became Newark, published by Rutgers University Press.; Dave, a computer guru doing things Steve doesn't understand and Ted, a brand manager for a liquor distribution company.) 

With all the hectic liveliness of 5 sons who were growing up with more than a dozen cousins within walking distance, instead of continuing in the law firm, wife Marion taught law part time to engineers at New Jersey Institute of Technology until taking care of Steve required retirement. Now there are 17 grandchildren to play with -  9 boys and 7 girls, ages 2 - 25, half of whom are living on Steve's same Erskine Lake in Ringwood NJ. 

Unfortunately, in spite of faithfully working out for all those years and time spent skiing at his Vermont ski house and swimming in the backyard lake, Steve developed dementia and today is struggling.  Please keep him in your prayers!

Graduating from Prep was an anxious time. Where to go to college. I wanted to be an engineer – go to a good school. St. Peter’s would only give me a letter of recommendation if I went to a Catholic college. My second honors cards were more numerous than those first honor certificates. I was by design a mediocre student. Stevens Tech in Hoboken seemed as if it would be a struggle. So, I chose N.C.E. Newark College of Engineering.

Location – up on a hill not far from McGovern’s pub. Campus – city blocks of mixed racial buildings, a local high school, some greenery, 3% female student body. Hard courses, hard teachers. Engineering drawing, physics and chemistry – not what I envisioned. Ever try to “print on a smooth mylar sheet” with a stylus filled with black ink – one lousy drop and you had to start over again – Ugh!

So, it took me 5 years, I became an industrial engineer getting A’s in history and English. You could see where I was heading. Became president of the Society for Advancement of Management, president of the debating society and editor of a departmental newsletter. Found out I loved to write. Got some awards, founded a fraternity and graduated with an appointment to Who’s Who in American Colleges and Universities.

Aha…now I needed a job. Wound up writing for McGraw-Hill. Traveling around the country visiting companies that turned production lines of widgets from “300 per day to 500 per day”. It was fun and I had my own by-line and my own secretary – that was a blast. But after two years I realized that the ladder upwards was clogged with more experienced writers. Promotions were slow and I was filled with piss and vinegar. A four day work week and free meals got tiresome, Really!

Got hired by Uniroyal – U.S. Rubber – designed air conditioning ducts – definitely not a WOW! Job. Spent time working in the mills in South Carolina where education meant a good job and short shorts were the rage of teenage production lines. When they wanted to send me to Shelbyville Tennessee to head up an 18 month project, I said good bye! Still looking for my niche.

Another good interview and I wound up at the Port Authority touted as “the best managed company in the country.” 

I spent 30 years at the “Port” heading up some great projects. Involved in the original construction of the twin towers – was very exciting. Some of my projects over the years: Where to put 30 tons of garbage that was going to be generated per day, per tower; How to design and fabricate an emergency evacuation stair from a Path train that was stuck in a tunnel under the Hudson River and had to make it light enough to be carried by a female conductor – maximum weight 22 lbs. – all Path trains carry them now. Headed up a $27 million communications control center project with dozens of TV monitors and integrated turn stiles and verbal communication into each Path station to chase away farebeat offenders and ….did a lot of work in the transportation planning area for future Path extensions, freight routes and transit interfaces. During my years at the Port, I was appointed to the Governor’s Commission on the upcoming omens of a rising sea level – an eye opening study which is now slowly coming to fruition. And on and on. A great 30 years at the Port – Loved it.

But, of course, couldn’t forget about my desire to write. I hooked up with a fellow Polonian (that’s what they called Polish Americans – still do). He was starting a weekly paper based in Clifton NJ called the Post Eagle and asked me to write a column – no pay! I jumped at the chance – my own masthead as well! To make a long story short – I wrote that weekly column for forty years – wrote a lot about Poland where my family and my wife Gloria’s family came from, Roots – you see. I wrote about politics and a myriad of other subjects.

As I became the papers Associate Editor, I delved into other areas. Started reviewing restaurants all over New Jersey (a really good dining event got rated 5 Polish Eagles!) Also started a column with Gloria called “The Plays The Thing” where we jointly reviewed plays – attending opening nights at places like Frank Daley’s Meadowbrook and the Paper Mill Playhouse. Meeting stars like Van Johnson and Ann Miller! It was a blast. Also did book reviews for a while as well. The Post Eagle also sent us on some trips to Europe (Poland) where we ate kielbasa on a skewer and drank vodka with Stephanie Powers in the mountains of Zakopane. What an experience! Lest I forget, I was also a beauty contest judge at Palisades Amusement Park where I would run a press conference with the applicant. Now that was a trip!

Of course there was another facet of my life after Prep. I enrolled at Seton Hall University to obtain my MBA in 1969. That degree was supposed to help me rise above the ranks at the Port – did it – Questionable!

In the early 80’s during one of my Port projects, met the son of a contractor I was dealing with who loved freight railroads. He asked me if I wanted to buy a freight railroad. Of course I said yes. Wouldn’t you! I laughed as well. Guess what: we added a third partner and in 1980 purchased the Morristown & Erie Railway whose offices and maintenance yard were located in Morristown. I couldn’t tell anyone I owned a railroad, no one would believe me. The details in the purchase are too long to discuss. But it happened – 40 miles of right of way, a half dozen locomotives and a few maintenance staff, secretaries and those ‘other’ kind of engineers.

When I retired for the Port Authority in 95, I actually went to work as Vice-President and owner of the Railway for 5 years. A massive adjustment in my life to say the least. My area of responsibility was marketing, customer communication, TDI advertising and cell tower installations. A lot of responsibility. By 2000, I sold my share in the railway and retired for a second time!

In that same year an organization in Bergen County, (I am proud of this) named me ‘Man of the Year’ and there was a big affair at a hotel near Newark Airport where 200 + people showed up to honor me for almost 40 years of my newspaper writings. Both John Connors and Ed Burke attended the affair.

So, still full of vim and vigor – what to do now! I became a teacher at Elmwood Park High School teaching math, English Lit and even some physical education classes. Did this for 4 years and then I retired for a third time.

The timing seemed to be right to move from our domicile in Clifton where we spent 30 years to the Jersey Shore. And so I entered another project, this time my own – took a small 3 bedroom bungalow at the beach in Lavallette and turned it into a two level edifice where we could spend our remaining years. Did the drawings for the house as well – Proud of that. Of course living at the beach led to a whole new career. I became a badge checker at the beach in the summers, a people friendly job for sure, got elected to the beach’s community board and was in charge of the life guards for a few years – a very rewarding experience that uncannily led to long time friendships and the erection of a lifeguard constructed Tiki Bar in my shore house rear yard. A wonderful haven for those afternoon and evening soirees!

During my internship at the beach, the writing blog hit me again and together with other local residents started up a weekly newspaper called the Jersey Shore Journal. In it, wrote a weekly column called “Catch The Drift” which covered such subjects as tidal movements, sea shell treasures, hemp growing – eclectic for sure. The paper folded within a year – but it was a great experience.

Gloria and I now live down at the beach full time. Our daughters and our grandsons make our summers just delightful.

After graduating from the Prep I went to St Peter's College - now University - majoring in History and Political Science. As part of that direction I joined the College's International Relations Club (IRC). In our graduating year (62') the president of our club colluded with his girl friend - the president of Marymount College Tarrytown IRC - to have a weekday evening meeting of the two clubs. The announced 'purpose' of the meeting was to debate whether Fidel Castro was an Agrarian Reformer or a Communist. With girls on the way - all our members were on deck. 

During the debate I was smitten by Peggy Lalley and found the courage to ask for her address and telephone number. We were married in 65'. Fidel Castro has always been a significant person to us - his politics of lesser concern... (Incidentally the presidents - Bill Kearns and Ellen Butler are also married and we have contact with them.)

On graduation I joined a Madison Ave advertising agency - working in media planning and scheduling of advertising. I loved knowing what was going to be on TV six months before anyone else. I eventually moved into client management - working on various Lever Brothers products. In my early thirties I was growing unhappy with the pressure of the NY agency life and took an opportunity to transfer to the Toronto office. After three years New York asked me to return. After discernment - I told Peggy I did not want to go back. So we and our then two daughters settled into cold winters and lovely summers. Two more daughters were born to us. A couple of years later I obtained Canadian Citizenship - and now have dual citizenship - as do Peggy and the girls.

I lasted in the Agency business till I was forty and then set out on my own - developing marketing and communication initiatives and consulting for Not-For-Profits and for the Social Service and Health Ministries of the Ontario Government.

During this time Peggy and I became quite involved with Parish youth groups. We also had the opportunity for a three year graduate level Biblical Study program - Old and New Testament - coordinated by the University of Toronto. This remains an active transforming experience for us.

My hobby of photography was also beginning to be noticed and soon I was publishing photographs in Catholic textbooks and periodicals. In my early 50s we began to devote significant energies to supplying Catholic publishers in the US and Canada with photography. Peggy manages the financial end. Because of the broad diversity in the Toronto area, our involvement in a variety of faith activities and travels to the Holy Lands we soon became a primary resource for the publishers. (Our digital library has over 250,000 images. You can view some of our work at WPWittman.com.)

In 2002 Pope John Paul II brought World Youth Day to Toronto and I was identified as the official photographer which provided some exceptional proximity to the Pope during the celebration. My photos were published in several books. We have since attended WYDs in Cologne, Madrid and Krakow Poland - the birth place of St John Paul II. (I hope you have had the opportunity to see the excellent video of WYD Krakow Vince Grillo prepared and posted on the Prep 58' Blog site - and also on my company website.) We remain active in providing photographs to Catholic publishers.

Our four daughters are married. All live within a half hour drive. Our youngest was married in November to a fine young man from Chattanooga Tenn. They will live in Toronto - he also has been drawn to the magnetic North. (Vince created a wonderful family video for us which was shown at the wedding. See it here)

Peggy and I are also engaged with the lives of our eight grandchildren - ages 20-6.

In writing this I have reflected that it pretty much shows an ascending order of events - everything falling easily into place. For sure there were also some deep valleys and rough storms. Probably the same for everybody.

I find myself occasionally looking back at my eight formative years with the Jesuits. I remember Fr Carr at the Prep telling our parents - 'Thank you for giving us your sons - we will return them men.' I believe they did their job. I have come to rely on the compass bearings they instilled... with abiding gratitude.

May all be good for all.