Necrology

Harry Boyle Donley '34

Apr. 20, 1911-Sep. 9, 2004

Harry Boyle Donley ’34, who had long practiced law in Stuart, FL, was born on April 20, 1911, in Binghamton, NY. A son of Louis F., a salesman, and Mary Boyle Donley, he grew up in New Milford, PA, and was graduated in 1929 from New Milford High School as valedictorian of his nine-member class. He stayed on at the school for a year of postgraduate study and came to Hamilton in 1930. Soon actively involved with student publications, Harry Donley became associate editor of Hamilton Life and the Hamiltonian as well as editor-in-chief of the Freshman Handbook. He was elected to the journalism honorary Pi Delta Epsilon. A member of ELS and the Newman Club, and credited with the ability to “turn any incident into several stories,” he left the Hill with his diploma in 1934.

During the Depression years of the 1930s Harry Donley was employed by the State of Pennsylvania as a statistician. He also pursued studies at Albany Law School. In 1942, he entered the U.S. Navy, was commissioned as an officer, and served throughout the rest of the Second World War, primarily on the destroyer escort U.S.S. Wingfield. Aboard it, he participated in numerous North Atlantic convoy crossings in winter and Mediterranean crossings in summer. He became the Wingfield’s commanding officer and was later assigned with the vessel to the Pacific theater, where at the war’s end he took part in overseeing the surrender of some of the Japanese naval and island garrison forces.

Following his discharge with the rank of lieutenant commander in 1946, Harry Donley resumed his law studies, this time at the Dickinson School of Law. He moved to Stuart, FL, after obtaining his LL.B. degree in 1947 and engaged in private practice, initially in partnership and later on his own. He continued to spend his summers in New Milford, where he resided with his two brothers and a sister in the family home. In both places he was active in community organizations as well as in the Roman Catholic Church.

More or less retired since the 1970s and long in ill health, Harry B. Donley died on September 9, 2004, while hospitalized in Susquehanna, PA, at the age of 93. Never married and predeceased by his brothers and sister, he leaves no immediate survivors.

 

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