Necrology

Winsor Beebe '44

Feb. 9, 1921-Mar. 12, 2005

Winsor Hartshorne Beebe ’44, a retired insurance company co-owner and prominent in community affairs, was born on February 9, 1921, in Wakefield, MA. The younger son of Marcus G., a leather broker, and Gladys Whitten Beebe, he grew up in that Boston suburb and was graduated from Wakefield High School. “Win” Beebe came to College Hill in 1940, after a year’s preparation at Loomis Institute (now Loomis Chaffee School) in Connecticut. He joined Alpha Delta Phi, lettered in basketball, and was elected to DT. Having acquired “the lowest draft number in New England,” he was assured of early entry into military service, and consequently he left the Hill after two years to do his part in World War II.

As a U.S. Army Air Corps radio operator and gunner with the 8th Air Force in Europe, Tech. Sgt. Beebe completed 18 missions in a B-24 Liberator bomber before his plane was shot down while on a raid over Germany in 1944. He subsequently spent a year and a half in a variety of German prisoner-of-war camps. Freed at the end of the war and awarded the Purple Heart and Air Medal with oak leaf clusters, he returned to Massachusetts and promptly wed Virginia Getchell on August 15, 1945, in Lynnfield.

The couple took up residence in Lynnfield, near Win’s hometown, and until 1954 he worked as a broker in his father’s business, Marcus Beebe Leather Co., in Boston. Thereafter he became a co-owner of Beebe, Blakeley & Forbes, an insurance agency also in Boston. Vice president of the firm, he retired in 1989.

Within the community, Win Beebe at one time chaired the Republican Town Committee of Lynnfield as well as the local chapter of the American Red Cross. He also served as president of the American Field Service in Lynnfield and was a member of the town’s school committee. An incorporator and later chairman of the board of the Wakefield Savings Bank, he served in addition as vice president of the Wakefield YMCA. Fond of travel, skiing, and boating with his family, he continued to play tennis into his later years. He also enjoyed duck hunting with friends and cherished most particularly the family’s annual summer gatherings in Maine.

Winsor H. Beebe was in Florida when, on March 12, 2005, he succumbed to injuries sustained in an automobile accident, as the College has only recently learned. Predeceased by his wife, he was survived by two daughters, Anne W. Lowe and Alison Robie; a son, Bradford D. Beebe; and seven grandchildren and a great-grandchild.

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