memoriam Frank Cunningham ’40 died at the age of 91 after he developed pneumonia post–hip replacement surgery. Cunningham was originally from Lowell, Mass. He served on the Student Council at Nobles for three years and joined the Dramatic Club his Class I year. His classmates thought he had “something of the original caveman about him—a certain atmosphere of beating on chest and primitive jungle calls, which combine to make him the muscleman of the class” (classbook, 1940). Once considered to have a promising football career, a back injury cut his career short on the field. This, however, narrowed his focus to crew, where he trained his focus for the rest of his life. Cunningham went on to Harvard, where he continued to row. He also served in the Marine Corps during World War II. After several jobs, Cunningham eventually moved to Seattle to pursue a career in education, and he continued his lifetime commitment to rowing. A member of the U.S. Rowing Hall of Fame, he was the 2010 recipient of U.S. Rowing’s Medal of Honor, and in 2011, the Washington state senate honored him with a resolution for service as a teacher and coach. He coached several future Olympians and was known as an icon of northwest rowing. Cunningham was preceded in death in 2004 by his wife, Jane. He is survived by son Chris, daughters Laurie and Ellyn, and five grandchildren. Weston Flint ’41 died on April 28, 2013, in London, Ontario, at the
age of 90. Flint was an elite runner for the Nobles track team alongside Hall of Famer Peter Garland ’41. The two trained together and frequently finished first and second at their meets. He also sang in the prize-winning Quartet in 1941 and was a leader in the group. Flint showed an early passion for languages at Nobles. He excelled in French but spent the summer after graduation learning Spanish. Flint captained the track team at Harvard. He served in General Patton’s Third Army during World War II. He then spent much of his life working abroad. He represented the First National Bank of Boston in Havana, Cuba, before earning a Ph.D. in romance languages at the University of North Carolina. In 1963, he directed the Middlebury study abroad program in Madrid before moving to Canada to head the department of romance languages at the University of Western Ontario. He was the husband of Noma; father of Robert, Lucy and Christopher; and grandfather of Emma, Grace and Gray. Henry E. “Mike” Erhard ’42 died on June 1, 2013, at the age of 89. A smaller boy, Erhard was given the dubious nickname “Peanut” but reportedly wore it with pride. He was a two-year member of the Nobles track team during its most dominant stretch in the school’s history. He played football and rowed crew and was a mainstay in the Glee Club from 1938–1942. Erhard was also an impressive classical pianist. After Nobles, Erhard matricu-
lated to Harvard, but his studies were interrupted by World War II, where he served his country as a captain and pilot in the U.S. Army Air Corps. He later returned to Harvard to row crew and finish his degree. After pursuing a master’s at Middlebury College, he taught and coached at Middlesex School for 30 years. Erhard spent his school breaks skiing in the New England mountains as recently as his 84th birthday. He is survived by his four children, Hope and her husband, John; Lincoln and his wife, Kerrin; Henry and his wife, Laurie; and Paul and his wife, Susan. He also leaves eight grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Peter Walker ’44 died on March 29, 2013, in Sebastopol, Calif. He was 87 years old. In a class that proclaimed itself “by no means the most dignified of Nobles first classes,” Walker was known for his diligence and attention to detail. World War II interrupted his Nobles career. His picture is featured below:
Peter Walker ’44
Jack Hoagland ’47, whose perceptivity and affection for others will always be remembered, died of natural causes on May 1, 2013, at his Cape Cod home, surrounded by family. He credited his first meeting with Eliot Putnam in the summer of 1944 as a life-changer. As a 15-year-old with a southern accent, transplanted to Boston from Louisville, Ky., he deeply appreciated Putnam’s conviction that Nobles was the school for him. As a member of the first varsity basketball team, an avid English student and an enthusiastic Castle inhabitant, Hoagland found his place. Although his gentle southern manners lingered for a lifetime, it was New England that captured his soul. Throughout his life, he referenced Sid Eaton as the single most important influence on his well-known intellectual pursuits. His four children, including John ’83, and nine grandchildren, including John Hunter ’04, Elissa Hoagland ’05, and Henry Hoagland ’09, all knew of his love for 19th- and 20th-century poets and the works of Shakespeare cultivated in Eaton’s classroom. On weekends, he fell in love with the warm waters of the Cape’s south-facing shores, an area he wrote about in Ariel View, a book of poetry he published in 2003. At Yale, he was elected freshman Glee Club president and later sang as a member of the Whiffenpoofs, his band of brothers. On a joint singing weekend at Smith College, he met Sally Ray, who became his beloved wife of 48 years and mother to their four children.
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