In Memoriam – Robert Gordon Starr
Dr. Robert Gordon Starr, Jr. passed away
peacefully on February 4, 2014 on a bluebird
morning. He was born on September 26, 1927 in
Greenwich, CT and grew up in Old Greenwich on
Sound Beach Avenue. He attended Brunswick
School and graduated from The Taft School in
1945.
He attended Kings Point and then graduated from Yale University in 1950. He
served as a Lieutenant (junior grade) in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War,
serving as a ship navigator and fleet command communicator during mine
sweeping operations. He returned to attend and graduate from Columbia
University with a masters' degree in Economics and went on to earn his PhD
in Economics from New York University.
He began his career in New York City in advertising with McCann-Erickson
but switched to investment banking, going on to have a long career with
Schroder Bank where he was a Security Analyst and Vice President as well as a
Chartered Financial Analyst.
He met his wife Harriet Pierce Wilcox on a ski trip with friends to Stowe and
they married in 1958. They shared many years skiing together, teaching their
three daughters to ski first in the backyard at the ages of 2 and 3, then in the
Berkshires and at Dutch Hill in Vermont.
He loved the woods, gardening and to hike the peaks of New England, as well
as ski, and enjoyed much of his retirement in Franconia, NH nearby the Sugar
Hill home where he had summered as a young boy. He also loved Long Island
Sound having spent much time with his father and friends blue fishing as well
as sailing as a young man. He regularly bicycled to Tod's Point first as a boy
and continued through his late seventies. He skied until he reached 80, having
enjoyed many trips west with his buddies Robin and Buzz as well as many
days at Cannon and Bretton Woods during his retirement.
In his later years he also enjoyed singing with the Melody Men at nursing
homes throughout CT as well as was active in the Greenwich RMA, the Sons of
the American Revolution and in historical and genealogical research, serving
as a member of many historical societies.
He leaves his loving wife Harriet Wilcox Starr, his daughters Marguerite (of
Woodbury, CT), Natalie (of West Windsor, VT), and Sarah (of Hood River,
OR) as well as their husbands, Peter Clark, David Putnam and Stanton Starr
(respectively) and six grandchildren (Thayer and Ben Clark, Sam and Eliza
Putnam, and Miranda and Isabelle Starr).
He was predeceased by his parents, Robert Gordon Starr and Nathalie Thayer
Starr of Old Greenwich and his sister Elizabeth Kirk Dennison of Old
Greenwich and Riverside.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made to the Friends of
Greenwich Point, P.O Box 711, Old Greenwich, CT 06870 or to the First
Congregational Church, 108 Sound Beach Avenue, Old Greenwich, CT 06870.
A memorial service will be held on March 29th at 11 a.m. at the First
Congregational Church, 108 Sound Beach Avenue, Old Greenwich, CT. The
Nicholas F. Cognetta Funeral Home & Crematory, 104 Myrtle Avenue,
Stamford is honored to assist the Starr family with the arrangements.