Necrology
Donald McCord Lynn, Jr. '50
Aug. 9, 1929-Jan. 23, 2023
Donald McCord Lynn, Jr. ’50, P’78,’90 died on Jan. 23, 2023, in Southern Pines, N.C. Born in Cleveland on Aug. 9, 1929, he resided with his family in Cleveland Heights and later in Elmira, N.Y. In an effort to escape a local outbreak of polio, he and his younger brother were sent to the Loomis School in Windsor, Conn. He graduated at 16 and came to Hamilton in the fall of 1946.
On the Hill, anticipating a career in medicine, Don majored in biology and chemistry. A member of Theta Delta Chi fraternity, he was also a member of the track team as a freshman, sang in the College Choir in both his freshman and sophomore years, and joined the Biology Club for his sophomore through senior years. He was in the Outing Club all four years and in the Student Christian Association his senior year.
As a biology major, he attracted the attention of Professor Walter Hess, the department chair, who strongly recommended that Don apply to the University of Cincinnati’s College of Medicine. He completed his medical degree there in 1954. Early in the course of his medical education, he met Coralee Unger, then a student at Cincinnati’s School of Nursing. They were married on Aug. 23, 1952. After completing her studies, she became a registered nurse in 1953. They had four daughters and two sons.
From Cincinnati, Don and Coralee moved to Denver, where he completed a residency in pediatrics. He then enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and was stationed for two years at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma City, where he was chief of pediatrics. Honorably discharged in 1959 with the rank of major, Don returned with Coralee to Elmira where he established a private practice in pediatrics the following year.
In 1968, Don changed course after the tragic loss of his oldest daughter Rebecca, who died as a result of a brain tumor when she was just 9. He closed his pediatrics practice and took up a postdoctoral fellowship with the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Division of University Hospitals at Case-Western Reserve University in Cleveland. After returning to Elmira he worked for the New York State Department of Mental Hygiene and, in 1969, established a child/adolescent treatment program as chief of Children’s and Adolescent Services at the newly opened Elmira Psychiatric Center. He held the position until 1986.
Beginning in the late 1970s, Don was president of the Elmira-Corning chapter of Partners of the Americas, a nonprofit organization whose mission was to promote economic and social change in the Western Hemisphere. His chapter partnered with what was then the British Caribbean colony of St. Christopher-Nevis and taught public health nurses ways of detecting delayed development in early childhood. On Sept. 19, 1983, the colony became the independent nation of St. Kitts and Nevis, and in the course of the independence ceremony, Don brought greetings from Hamilton College to the birthplace of its namesake after discovering that, unbeknownst to him, his name had been included on the program. The public speaking skills acquired on the Hill stood him in good stead.
He also served as medical coordinator for the Southern Tier Learning Disability Center and was consulting pediatrician at the Arnot-Ogden and St. Joseph’s Hospitals in Elmira, and at Schuyler Hospital in Montour Falls. He accepted an appointment as part-time medical director for Planned Parenthood of the Southern Tier and directed the medical services for the closing of the Newark (N.Y.) Development Center.
In 1990, despite claiming in his 40th reunion yearbook entry to have retired and left Elmira for Southern Pines, Don continued to serve as a developmental pediatrician specializing in adolescent medicine for Longleaf Lodge, a medical clinic in Pinehurst, N.C. Well into his 80s, he acted as a medical consultant to group homes serving adults with intellectual disabilities while also lending his expertise in the fight to eliminate substance abuse among adolescents in the eastern part of North Carolina.
In Southern Pines, he and Coralee purchased a home adjacent to Pinehurst Country Club, a golf course where he frequently played and maintained his 18 handicap. The two of them traveled extensively, visiting all 50 states as well as Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Caribbean.
Don was a lifelong gardener and, being economical, made use of the manure produced by horses in a nearby pasture, often bringing it home in the back of the family station wagon, much to the consternation of his children. He also sang in church choirs and developed a passion for gourmet cuisine and fine wines, an interest that included for a time co-owning a vineyard in California with his brother Richard, as well as maintaining a wine cellar. Taking his responsibilities as an oenophile seriously naturally required a daily sampling of the inventory, which, he noted, was not without its health benefits. He was also interested in art history and became an accomplished painter in oils.
His interest in the life of Alexander Hamilton, and especially Hamilton’s childhood on Nevis, led him to conduct research concerning the year of Hamilton’s birth, which Hamilton had claimed was 1755. Several documents that Don collected, however, suggest that in fact Hamilton was born in 1757, and that his claim of the earlier year enabled him to avoid becoming a ward of the colony.
In a 1990 alumni survey Don expressed the College’s impact on him: “Hamilton provided excellent academic work which prepared me for medical school…. The sports program in carry-over sports was an integral part of my time/schedule…. Intellectual stimulation in extracurricular activities, i.e., music, art, theatre, has been expanded over the years into an important facet of my life. I believe I was truly able to ‘know thyself.’”
Don repaid Hamilton as a capital campaign volunteer, a member of the Alumni Council and his class committee, chair of his reunion gift committee, and a participant in the Career Center’s volunteer program. He was also a faithful donor to the Hamilton Fund.
Donald M. Lynn, Jr. is survived by his wife and five of their children, including Cheryl Lynn McKay K’78 and Daniel M. Lynn ’90, 12 grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren. He was predeceased by his daughter Rebecca and his brother.
