The following piece was recently mailed to the Alumni Office.
Bud Edwards (also called Harold Edwards Jr., of the family that owned the O.M. Edwards Company in Syracuse and a longtime friend of The Pines Press) was a devoted friend of Steward F. Hancock Jr. and shares some reminiscences of the man he called “Stew:”
Stew and I were friends for 80 years. We started out at Peblle Hill School, age 10, wrestling. Stew won. From Pebble Hill we went on to Deerfield Academy, class of 1938, then the Naval Academy, class of 1942.
We met gain at Pearl Harbor in the fall of 1945. We played tennis with the executive of the school and learned to surf in front of the Hawaiian Hotel.
We both resigned from the Navy in the spring of 1947. I went on to the Harvard Business School, Stew to Cornell Law School. We were both called back in the Navy during the Korean War. Stew went on the Helena, a heavy cruiser. They bombarded the North Koreans. I went to a destroyer in the Atlantic. We were out on duty from 1951 to 1953.
Stew and I caught a 545-pound blue fin tuna, 15 miles from Orr’s Island, Maine, where I summered. I had a 33-foot Pearson 33 sailboat. We raced the Portland to Monhegan Island races three times – also the Marblehead to Halifax race, 400 miles. We took a second in our class.
Cruising to Monhegan Island, Stew once said that there were a lot of strange natives. Once, when we were buying lobsters, the lobsterman said, “Are you some of those yottes?” Stew said, “Let me sing you a song: Yachting, yachtine over the waves we go, yachting, yachting over the waves we go. If there is one more thing I like, riding on my bike, over the deep blue sea.”
Meg and I fled from the store. The next day the lobsterman said, “That was some strange fellow. What did he do for aliving?” I said, “Stew is an Appeals Court judge in New York, our highest court.” He replied, “Can you beat that?”
We loved to sing all the old songs. Stew died on February 11. I called him on February 2, his 91st birthday. He said “YATG, your the greates.” I replied “YAAG, you are a genius.”
Ruthie and family gave him a great church service and Party at the Centruy Club. I think about Stew all the time. Love to all.
Harold Edwards
1941