David Albert Works ’42

David Albert Works ’42 died on February 3, 2006, in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Born on November 22, 1920, in Cleveland, OH, he prepared for college at Hughes High School in Cincinnati, OH, and New Trier Township High School in Winnetka, IL, and became a member of Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity at Bowdoin, which he attended in 1938 and 1939 before studying for a year at the University of Chicago. In World War II, he served in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1941-42 before his discharge for medical reasons in 1942. After working in the sports department of the Portland Press Herald, he studied for a year at Indiana University and then for another year at Bowdoin. For three years, he studied at the Virginia Theological Seminary, from which he graduated in 1948, when he also received a bachelor of arts degree from Bowdoin as a member of the Class of 1942. In 1988, he received an honorary doctor of divinity degree from the Virginia Theological Seminary. He served as lay reader in charge and then as rector of Christ Episcopal Church in North Conway, NH, from 1948 to 1960. As a recovering alcoholic, he saw the need for ministry to alcoholics and their families, and in 1951, he attended a summer program at the Yale School of Alcohol Studies and worked with other church leaders in New England to change attitudes and use the resources of faith communities to bring healing to alcoholics and their families. As a result, from 1951 to 2000 he served as the president and founder of the North Conway Institute, an interfaith, interdisciplinary movement promoting education and public policy reform in the areas of alcoholism and substance abuse. The Institute was brought to Boston in 1963. Through the years, he served with many organizations interested in alcohol and drug concerns, including the National Commission on Indian Affairs and the Massachusetts Governor’s Drug Rehabilitation Advisory Board, and for many years was a visiting professor at the Center of Economic Studies at Rutgers University. He was a member of many organizations, including the Union Club of Boston, the board of the USS Constitution Museum, the Mayflower Society, the Civil War Roundtable of Charlottesville, the George Gallup Institute, and the New Hampshire Bicentennial Commission. He was also a member of the advisory boards for the Osborne Foundation, the U.S. Department of Transportation, the U.S. Air Force Chaplain Service, and the Freedom Trail Foundation. Surviving are his wife, Lucy Robb Winston Works, whom he married in 1946; a daughter, the Reverend Betty Works Fuller of Corpus Christi, TX; a son, David W. Works of Boston, MA; two sisters, Margaret Gibbs of Salem, OH, and Elizabeth Wilkins of Fairhope, AL; and two grandchildren.