Page 58 - Alumni Horae: Vol. 93, No. 1 Fall 2012

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Mr. Hoyt studied romance languages
at Harvard, graduating cum laude in June
1936. He moved to New York City, where
he worked for Forum Magazine as secre-
tary to the editor, then applied to Yale
Law School. He was admitted to the bar,
and in 1941 married Helen Iselin Hall in
Morristown. From 1943 to 1945, Mr. Hoyt
served in the U.S. Army, stationed in
Edmonton, Alberta, where he had ample
time to learn Russian from a fellow soldier.
Mr. Hoyt practiced law in Morristown
for nearly 50 years. While he and his
wife were raising their six children there,
he also became deeply involved in civic
affairs, taking part in local politics and
cultural matters.
On a family vacation to Tennessee in
1957, Mr. Hoyt hiked a section of the
Appalachian Trail, resolving to finish the
2,180-mile path by hiking it in sections.
He completed it 35 years later, just before
turning 80. By then he had become the
consummate backpacker, even making
his own beef jerky.
Retirement from his full-time law prac-
tice allowed Mr. Hoyt to shift into a higher
gear as he happily cruised through the
last 30 years of his life. After heart bypass
surgery in his sixties, he took up aerobics
and jogging. He continued his hobby of
translating works of literature, an effort
that culminated in a translation of the
Russian classic Eugene Onegin by Alex-
ander Pushkin. In his book, he placed the
Russian text opposite the English on each
spread of pages. His translation matches
Pushkin’s unusual iambic tetrameter for
171 pages, an effort that he likened to work-
ing a crossword puzzle and making it all
come out perfectly. He also compiled and
published a book of his mother’s paint-
ings, and took up landscape painting for
his own pleasure. Generally a fairly serious
person, he was known for his dry wit and
love for wordplay and multilingual puns.
Mr. Hoyt and his wife, Helen, celebrated
their 70th wedding anniversary in Septem-
ber 2011. She survives him, as do their six
children: Henry Martyn Hoyt, Elizabeth
Bayles, Louis Phillips Hoyt, Frances I. Hoyt,
Paul S. Hoyt, and Alexander D. Hoyt; 11
grandchildren; nine great-grandchildren;
and two step-great-grandchildren.
1937
William Augustus Read Jr.
a World War II gunner and prisoner of
war who later turned to alligator trapping
as a hobby and made a habit of cheating
death during his lifetime died peacefully,
in his sleep, on October 28, 2011, at the
age of 93.
The oldest of nine children born to Ad-
miral William A. Read and Edith Fabyan
Read, he grew up in Purchase, N.Y., and
had both learned to shoot a gun and
obtained his pilot’s license by the time he
was 16. He came from a family of St. Paul’s
graduates, including his three uncles
(Duncan H. Read of the Form of 1915, R.
Bartow Read of the Form of 1916, and
Bayard W. Read of the Form of 1920), and
his seven brothers (Curtis S. Read ’38,
David W. Read ’40, Roderick F. Read ’43,
Peter B. Read ’44, Alexander D. Read ’46,
Donald B. Read ’48, and Frederick H.
Read ’56). Mr. Read entered the Second
Form in 1932 but withdrew from the
School in August 1936. He also attended
the Hun School of Princeton.
He married Kathleen Cushman Spence
and they had one daughter, Edith Fabyan
Read (Wey), but the couple was later
divorced.
After Pearl Harbor, Mr. Read hoped to
be a pilot in the Air Force or Navy, but
because he wore glasses, he wasn’t able
to qualify. His father knew that the Navy
was starting a Naval Aerial Gunnery
Instructor’s School (AGIS) in Pensacola,
Fla., and needed people who knew how
to shoot. Mr. Read got a waiver for his
eyesight and joined the Navy, graduating
from the AGIS at the top of his class. He
was then assigned as Range Officer at the
Navy Border Field Machine Gun Range at
the North Island Air Station in San Diego
and became gunner officer for the Navy
Patrol-Bombing Squadron 101 in the
Southwest Pacific.
DECEASED
Oliver Langenberg is survived by his
wife; his son Peter and daughter-in-law
Marilyn; daughter Alice and son-in-law
Walter Abrams; stepson William Polk Jr.
and daughter-in-law Carrie; seven grand-
children, and one great-grandchild.
1932
Henry “Harry” Martyn Hoyt
a distinguished
attorney whose
friends consid-
ered him a gen-
uine Renaissance
man, died on
March 12, 2012,
in Morristown,
N.J., of congestive
heart failure. He
was 97 years old and had spent most of
his adult life in Morristown.
Born on October 24, 1914, in nearby
West Orange, to Alice Parker and Henry
Martyn Hoyt, Mr. Hoyt was the fourth gen-
eration in his family to carry the same
name. The original Henry Martyn Hoyt
was the 18th governor of Pennsylvania,
serving from 1879 to 1883, and the second
H. M. Hoyt (Mr. Hoyt’s grandfather) was
Solicitor General of the U.S. under Theo-
dore Roosevelt. One of his great-aunts
was the poet Elinor Wylie.
Mr. Hoyt’s father died when he was five,
and his mother married the Harvard
historian Harold Robert Shurtleff, who
was active in the restoration of Colonial
Williamsburg, Va. Mrs. Shurtleff enrolled
her son as a First Former at SPS in 1926.
He had attended St. Bernard’s School in
New York City and Carteret Academy in
Orange, N.J. Although painfully shy and
awkward athletically, Mr. Hoyt did well
in his studies. Always near the top of his
form, he displayed an early interest in
linguistics. SPS introduced him to the
classics as well as French and Spanish,
which developed into a lifelong love for
conjugating and parsing. Despite missing
six weeks of Sixth Form due to whooping
cough, he graduated fifth in his class.
When asked later about his most mem-
orable experiences at SPS, he replied:
“starched collars and Chapel twice a day,
for six long years.”