Page 54 - Alumni Horae: Vol. 94, No. 3 Spring 2014

Criminal Rules Committee. He was also
active in the campaigns for Senator Arlen
Specter and President George H.W. Bush.
Mr. Sellers met Specter in the district
attorney’s office and, according to the
Philadelphia Inquirer, Specter earned the
other man’s admiration because of their
shared beliefs about “national defense,
effective crime prevention, and improve-
ment of justice in general.”
Although Mr. Sellers loved Philadelphia,
he left the city again late in his career to
serve as a Fulbright scholar, teaching law
at universities in Romania and Ukraine. He
also taught closer to home as an adjunct
professor in the greater Philadelphia area.
Mr. Sellers wrote several books, includ-
ing a biography of his great-great-grand-
father John Christian Bullitt, a 19th-century
lawyer memorialized in a statue near
Philadelphia’s city hall.
Mr. Sellers is survived by his two sisters,
Therese Parrish and Anne Henderson;
his brother, Peter Sellers; 12 nieces and
nephews; and 16 great-nieces and great-
nephews.
1950
James Craven Manny
who pursued a
long career in
manufacturing
and technology
and enjoyed a
happy retirement
in Maine, died on
February 25, 2014,
at the age of 80
at his home in
Harpswell, Maine.
Mr. Manny was born and raised in New
York City. He followed his father, Walter
Roy Manny (1908), and brother, Walter
Roy Manny Jr. ’39, to St. Paul’s. He played
soccer and hockey for Delphian and was a
member of the squash team and the Glee
Club. His fondest memories were of play-
ing hockey on natural ice and soaking up
music in the Chapel. Mr. Manny’s involve-
ment with the School continued for many
decades as a parent and alumnus. Four of
the six Manny children attended St. Paul’s,
and Mr. Manny and his wife, Abigail,
greatly enjoyed their visits to Concord.
One of Mr. Manny’s favorite traditions,
he once wrote in a letter to the School,
was the singing of “Love Divine” on
Parents’ Day. He was also able to visit his
old dorm room in Manville when it was
assigned to his son, Tim ’89, in his first
year at St. Paul’s.
After leaving St. Paul’s, Mr. Manny
attended Yale University, graduating in
1954. He served two years in the U.S.
Army, and was married to Abigail in 1955.
He then earned his M.B.A. from Harvard
Business School. His first job was with
Rolled Plate Metal Company in Brooklyn,
N.Y., and he went on to become president
of Composition Systems in White Plains,
N.Y. The Manny family lived in New York
and in New Canaan, Conn., and spent many
happy times in Woodstock, Vt.
After retiring to Maine, Mr. Manny
relished cruising the coast on his beloved
B-40 yawl, Whiff . He was a member of the
New York Yacht Club, Mystic Seaport, and
the Huguenot Society. He also served
proudly as a board member of the Cundy’s
Harbor Volunteer Fire Department.
Survivors include his wife of 59 years,
Abigail; their six children, Alison Dou-
cette ’74; Walter R. Manny II ’75; Alix Manny;
Tim Manny ’89, Abigail Newport ’92, and
Ailsa Fox. He also leaves his two sisters,
MayField Drorbaugh and Virginia Lancaster.
1953
Elliston Perot Bissell III
died peacefully
on November 19,
2013, in Chatham,
N.J. He was 78
years old.
Well known and
loved by many,
“Pete” Bissell lived
a rich and reward-
ing life. He was
born the son of Elliston Perot Bissell Jr.
and Ann Packard Bissell on May 26, 1935,
in Jamaica Queens, N.Y., and spent his early
years in Morristown, N.J., and Haverford,
Pa. He attended the Episcopal School in
Philadelphia before entering the Third
Form at St. Paul’s School in 1949.
On the occasion of his 50th SPS anni-
versary in 2003, Mr. Bissell remarked that
entering the School was “in a way a won-
drous event,” but he was surprised to find
himself assigned to Isthmian and Shattuck,
since so many older cousins had gone to
SPS for generations and had competed
for Old Hundred and Halcyon.
“The values I absorbed at SPS have
been a marvelous foundation as I have
gone through life,” he wrote in 2003. “The
education and opportunities that I was
given have been an integral aspect of my
life experience.”
Mr. Bissell was known as a shy boy, but
a hard worker who earned Second Testi-
monials as a Sixth Former. His extracur-
ricular activities included participation in
the Yearbook Committee, the Glee Club,
the Missionary Society, the Library Assoc-
iation, and the Scientific Association. He
worked on the stage crew of many per-
formances through his membership in
the Dramatic Club. He also played football
and hockey and enjoyed rowing. He main-
tained lifelong friendships with formmates
John Powell and Tatsuo Arima.
Mr. Bissell went on to Harvard Univer-
sity, where he majored in biochemical
sciences. While at Harvard, he was a
member of the Hasty Pudding Club, the
Lampoon, and president of the Phoenix–
S.K. Club. Mr. Bissell graduated from
Harvard in 1957 and entered the U.S. Navy’s
Officer Candidate School in Newport, R.I.,
where he was commissioned as an ensign
in 1958. He married Edith (Edie) Mabelle
Roach of Newtown Square, Pa., in March
1958 and the couple traveled by ship to his
assigned naval base in Yokosuka, Japan.
There Mr. Bissell served in a naval intel-
ligence unit. After his discharge from
active duty in 1961, the family, which
now included two sons, returned to the
United States. Mr. Bissell continued to
serve in the Naval Reserves for 30 years
and retired as a Commander.
Following his return to Philadelphia in
1961, Mr. Bissell began a career with the
Bell System, initially in Pennsylvania and
later in Delaware. In 1980 he was trans-
ferred to AT&T International, where he
had a long and distinguished career that
took him to many interesting places, in-
cluding a stint in Egypt from 1982 to 1984.
He also gained recognition for obtaining
two patents for proprietary telecommu-
nication devices.
In addition to his work, Mr. Bissell was
active in several community organizations,
including the Kiwanis Club in Norristown,
Pa., the Rotary Club of Wilmington, Del.
(serving as president in 1981), the Oppor-
tunity Center Inc. (a nonprofit group
dedicated to improving the lives of adults
DECEASED
54