Page 60 - Alumni Horae: Vol. 93, No. 1 Fall 2012

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He took painting seriously and showed
his work informally. Mr. Hurd’s abstract
paintings were influenced by the color
palette of Pierre Bonnard. He was the
founder and sole member of the école
d’Abstraction Spé cifique and had the
letterhead to prove it. His gently ironic
personality came out in other ways as
well, and he was a dapper dresser who
favored madras plaids, shirts in bright
nautical stripes, and polka-dot handker-
chiefs, the ensemble often ink-stained
and frayed.
Mr. Hurd maintained long friendships
with many formmates, including Fred
Rockefeller, Roddy O’Connor, Newt
McVeigh, John Lindsay (his best man),
Eddie Morgan, and Joe McCrindle, and
remembered their SPS years together
with great affection.
During the last years of his life, despite
worsening glaucoma, he revised and pub-
lished Temples of Tamil Nad , a memoir
of his travels from 50 years earlier in
India. He embarked on the project after
his daughter, Madeleine, found his original
notes and presented them to him at his
80th birthday party.
Mr. Hurd is survived by his wife of 60
years, Nancy, and his children, Madeleine,
James ’73, and Christopher.
1941
James Boyd Smith
who modestly evaluated his own contri-
bution to the world as “satisfactory but
not meteoric,” died January 21, 2012, in
Skillman, N.J. He was 88 years old.
He was born in New York City on Sep-
tember 7, 1923, and grew up in Great
Neck, Long Island, where he attended
Great Neck Preparatory School. His
parents, Jessie Boyd and Walter Brett
Smith, enrolled him in the Third Form
in September 1937. Early on, the School
could see that his curiosity and prodi-
The family also enjoyed international
travel, including several long trips explor-
ing Europe. The elder Smiths rented
lodgings large enough to accommodate
their growing brood and explored for
about a month at a time, basing them-
selves in locations as diverse as the Cots-
wolds in England, the Great Peloponnesian
Islands of Greece (by sailboat), and Sienna
in Tuscany.
Mr. Smith retired in 1984 and put his
considerable energy toward his commu-
nity and family. He served on the Prince-
ton school board and was an active
member of the town’s sewer operating
commission for two decades. He was an
enthusiastic organizer for his Princeton
class activities, and was also active at
Trinity Church in Princeton, as well as
the Nassau Club, the Old Guard, Sons of
the American Revolution, and Springdale
Golf Club. In 2004, he and his wife moved
to a retirement community in Skillman,
and continued to enjoy traveling together.
His active mind absorbed and remembered
details from every experience. As he said,
“One should always be alert to pick up
extraneous knowledge.”
Mr. Smith is survived by his wife,
Betsy; their children, Brett, Derek, Lane,
and Tenbroeck Smith and their families;
five grandchildren; two granddaughters-
in-law; and three great-grandchildren.
1942
Robert Ovens Derrick Jr.
a retired engineer
and longtime CIA
employee, died
peacefully, on
April 8, at River-
mead Retirement
Community in
Peterborough,
N.H. He was 88.
Mr. Derrick was
born in Detroit, Mich., to Robert O. Derrick
of the Form of 1909 and Clara D. Hodges.
He came to St. Paul’s as a Second Former
in 1937, competing with Isthmian and Hal-
cyon. He played ice hockey and squash
and served as an inspector and Chapel
warden. He also participated in the Choir,
the Scientific Association, and the Dance
Committee. Despite frequent illnesses
which affected his grades during his ten-
ure at SPS, Mr. Derrick still proved himself
gious memory gave him unusual promise
as a scientist. He excelled in nearly all of
his classes, but was especially proficient
at math and science. By Sixth Form, he
was sailing through advanced chemistry,
physics, and math. He also played football
and hockey for Delphian, rowed with Shat-
tuck, was secretary-treasurer of the Radio
Club, and belonged to the Scientific Assoc-
iation. He earned Second Testimonials in
1938, 1939, and 1940, and received the
Second Dickey Prize in science in 1940.
Mr. Smith was admitted to Princeton’s
class of 1945, where he joined a handful of
other whiz kids in an accelerated course
in chemical engineering, graduating on
April 4, 1944, with a BSE. He joined the
Navy to contribute to the war effort and
was recruited to work on the Manhattan
Project. Writing 50 years later, he made
the comment about his life’s contribution
being “satisfactory,” and added, “Perhaps
the most unusual thing I have done was
work on the atomic bomb and, by exten-
sion, on nuclear energy. It grieves me to
see that the human race has done such a
poor job of managing this rich resource.”
After the war, Mr. Smith completed
his master’s in chemical engineering at
Princeton and married Betsy Ann Howe
on June 22, 1946. His career began with
the water-treatment firm Permutit in
1947. Several years later, Mr. Smith joined
American Cyanamid, where he worked
for 30 years, designing and selling spec-
ialty chemicals for the petroleum and
water-treatment industries. He also
helped develop the catalytic converter
for automobiles.
In 1960, after a stint living in Houston,
Texas, the family, by then including three
children, moved back to Princeton, where
the Smiths’ fourth child was born. While
their children were young, the family
spent idyllic summer vacations on Chap-
paquiddick Island, on the eastern end of
Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. They rented a
small cottage called Webquish and sailed
in the quiet bays. Long after their children
were grown, Mr. and Mrs. Smith returned
to Webquish nearly every summer.
DECEASED