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HOTCHKISS
i n me mo ri a m
In Remembrance Edgar M. Cullman ’36 – Loyal Friend BY FAY VINCENT ’56
Edgar Cullman, whose death at 93 ended a long life of dedicated service to Hotchkiss, was my dear friend, and I shall miss him greatly. We met as trustees of Hotchkiss in 1976 when I was asked to join the Board on which Edgar was a senior influential member, and over the following years we became devoted colleagues and loyal friends. And it is loyalty that best sums up the finest of the many wonderful qualities of this decent and unusual man. To his many close friends he was unfailingly loyal and devoted. He cared about us and worked hard at maintaining relationships. Yet he was a man of property. Always elegantly dressed, he was unapologetic about his wealth and genetic nobility. He loved people and as I came to know him, I also came to understand he loved just about everyone he ever met. And we who knew him best loved him in return. The cook in Jamaica, the driver in Connecticut, and the fishing guide in New Brunswick all cared about him deeply as he cared for them deeply and generously. His great passion was his lovely and caring and supportive wife, Louise (Bloomingdale) Cullman. Whenever he and I had a disagreement, I urged him to ask Louise what she thought. She always gave solid counsel. He died on the 73rd anniversary of their wedding. They married in 1938, when he was 20 and a sophomore at Yale, and she was the daughter of the eponymous department store mogul. They were young, and his father consented to the marriage for a reason Edgar softly confided to me one evening as he sipped his martini amid a gentle cloud of smoke from his Cuban cigar. When he arrived at Yale, he had happily joined a fraternity along with some of his good Hotchkiss friends, but after a few days the president of the fraternity had told him his membership had been rejected by the national fraternity authorities, who would not accept a Jewish member. Devastated, he importuned his father to permit him and Louise to marry. After the wedding the couple moved into a fine flat on Edwards Street in New Haven. As they set up their new home, Louise’s mother told them she was sending her maid to live with them because she knew Louise was too inexperienced to train new help. Edgar and Louise began their life together as they ended it – in the courtly style in which they had been raised.
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One of my small jokes with Edgar was my repeated insistence he had never had a sandwich in his life. To him lunch was a threecourse formal event served in his elegant office dining room by a cook who prepared his consommé and oysters and broiled fish in just the appropriate manner. In some ways he was the last of the Victorians, and sadly his style of life is almost gone. He went off every morning to the office and worked hard right up to the final days of his life. He took business and his work seriously. But his charitable passions were also vital to him – Yale, Mt. Sinai Hospital, and Hotchkiss. He was devoted to each of them, worked intensely for their welfare, and was generous with his gifts. His three brothers were also Hotchkiss and Yale alumni, and his family helped to found Mt. Sinai when Jewish doctors were refused certification at the other New York hospitals. Quietly and gently he pushed sensible agendas for those fine institutions, and he rejoiced in their prominence, though he anguished at the Yale Bowl when his beloved Yale team failed to run plays he believed wise. He never doubted his football insights were as sound as his knowledge of cigars. His death leaves us with joyous memories and the sure conviction he led a superb and good life. His life was as set as the seasonal calendar. At a certain time of year – every year – he did set things. He went to Jamaica for Thanksgiving and again in late January. He returned home in April in time for the salmon fishing runs in Canada. Then he was home at his beloved Stamford farm until Saratoga and later the Yale football season opened. In each of those cherished places he shared himself and his fun and his cigars and his homes with his friends. And after his death three of us, all close to him and to each other, met for dinner in New York to honor him. When I asked what the others thought was his greatest quality, Peter Solomon quickly responded – “loyalty.” Dan Lufkin and I agreed, and we rather wistfully raised a glass to our dear friend. The ancient toast is appropriate – Ave atque vale. Hail and farewell, loyal friend. Fay Vincent ’56 served with Edgar Cullman on the Board of Trustees and is a former President of the Board.