John E. Hooke ’37 died on April 7, 2014, in Mystic, Connecticut, at the age of ninety-nine.
He was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., on August 7, 1914, and graduated from Columbia High School in Maplewood, N.J. He was a steward of Psi Upsilon fraternity, meaning that he ordered and managed the fraternity’s food service, including hiring fellow students. He hired his three brothers, who all attended Bowdoin and who all were in need of jobs during the Depression. He went on to serve to lieutenant senior grade in the Navy in the Pacific theater during World War II. He worked for many years in the textile industry before switching to his true passion, finance. He pursued a long and productive career as an investment broker, retiring from Shearson Lehman Hutton in his eighties. He was a member of the Montclair Volunteer Ambulance Unit, the Montclair Rotary Club, and the Dunworkin Club. He was a devoted member of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Montclair, N.J., where he served on both the vestry and the ushers committee. He was also a member of St. Peter’s Church in West Caldwell, N.J. An excellent athlete, he competed on the collegiate level in both swimming and track. In later years he enjoyed fishing, painting, gardening, and playing tennis and golf. He is survived by sisters Gertrude Winton and Mary Salter, son John E. Hooke Jr., daughters Diane Mitchell and Marion Leddy, and eight grandchildren. He was predeceased by his wife of more than fifty years, Phyllis Ruegger Hooke, who died in 2002; daughter Barbara Kral in 2001; former wife Marguerite Mentzendorff Carter; brothers William R. Hooke ’36, Robert L. Hooke ’38, and Richard I. Hooke ’43 in 1988; and sister Martha Tredwell.