Henry D.M. Sherrerd Jr. ’52 died on March 26, 2022, in San Francisco, California

(The following was provided by the Bangor Daily News on April 3, 2022)

Henry D.M. Sherrerd Jr. ’52

Dexter – Henry D.M. Sherrerd Jr. of Dexter, Maine, died March 26, 2022, of complications from COPD. He was 94. He is survived by his sister, Lois Sherrerd Clements; nephew, William Sherrerd Clements; niece, Lois Clements Glenn; and four grand-nieces and nephews.

Henry grew up in Haddonfield, New Jersey, the son of Lois Reeside Sherrerd and Henry Dyer Moore Sherrerd. He attended The Lawrenceville School, studied aeronautical engineering at Princeton University, served in the U.S. Air Force as a data analyst and strategic photo interpreter during the Korean War, and went on to graduate with honors in English from Bowdoin College.

While serving in the U.S. Air Force he met his beloved wife, Ayako Ichikawa, a native of Tokyo, Japan. They married in 1960 and lived in Buffalo, New York, where Henry worked as a technical writer for Bell Aerosystems Corp. and Cornell Aeronautical Labs. He later settled in Dexter, Maine, where he pursued his love of writing and poetry, and did graduate work in Medieval and Old English at the University of Maine, Orono.

Aside from Ayako, Henry’s great love was for The Pines, a family camp on Lake Onawa in Central Maine, accessible only by boat and lit only by kerosene.

Life on Lake Onawa inspired Henry’s book The Onawa Bestiary: An Opinionated Survey with Digressions, published in 1988. His writing also appeared in the Bangor Daily News, to which he contributed articles, book reviews, and poems.

Henry’s poetry won prizes and serves as a chronicle of his life, covering his travels in Europe and Asia, his military experience, his passion for Ayako, his love of fine art and his appreciation of nature.

Another great passion of Henry’s was flight. Although color blindness disqualified him from serving as an Air Force pilot, he flew private planes and was a prolific designer and builder of model airplanes throughout his life. Henry’s model designs won flying competitions all over New England and were published in model-making magazines, with some models displayed at The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia.

Henry will be remembered for his wit, his fierce independence, and the many talents that defined his eclectic life and enriched the lives of all who knew him.