Walter G. Distler Jr. ’52

Walter G. Distler Jr. ’52 died April 28, 2014, in Bedford, N.Y. He was born in Baltimore, Md., on June 22, 1929, and prepared for college at Georgetown Preparatory School. He transferred to Bowdoin as a junior after a year each at Cornell University and Champlain College. He majored in economics at Bowdoin and was vice president of Alpha Delta Phi fraternity. He attended officer training school, was commissioned an ensign in the Navy in July 1952 and served aboard the USS Boston. He worked as a superintendent at Murray Leather Co. in Woburn, Mass., in the early 1960s, then for the Fuller construction company as a job-runner on the new Metropolitan Opera House in Lincoln Center in New York. He was later promoted to project manager at Fuller. He officiated at horse shows for decades as a United States Equestrian Federation steward, and took pride in the tack trunks he built. He is survived by his wife of 62 years, Elsie Murray Distler. He was the father of three boys and three girls, and the grandfather of seven.

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