Page 54 - Alumni Horae: Vol. 93, No. 4 Summer 2013

a Funk B and a Commonwealth Skyranger,
which he flew for both pleasure and per-
sonal travel. He worked with DuMont Tele-
vision and received a government patent
on a device for FM radio he hoped would
be useful in television broadcast stations.
Mr. Grace was acutely aware of social
issues. Realizing a dream of rewarding
schoolchildren for kindness and good
character, he and his wife Boo established
in 2000 the F. Cecil Grace Foundation,
which sponsors Operation: Positive Role
Model, an initiative through which student
peers nominate role models to receive
$1,000 grants. His legacy continues through
this rapidly growing program.
The Graces were also dedicated to the
issue of reducing obesity, developing a
“fullness” program that included the
invention of a diet shake and bar, both of
which received U.S. patents in 2002. Mr.
and Mrs. Grace detailed the program in
their 2008 book Slim Satisfied and Sexy
at 56: I’ll Never Be Hungry Again . In 2011,
Mr. Grace shared his final book, The Last
Flight of Cecil Grace, hoping to inspire
future aviators.
Mr. Grace is survived by his beloved
wife, Margery “Boo” Grace.
1936
Peter Marne Shonk
a World War II
fighter pilot, who
fondly recalled
meeting both
Charles Lindbergh
and Amelia Ear-
hart, died peace-
fully at his home
in Dublin, N.H.,
on April 17, 2013.
He was 94.
Mr. Shonk was born in Scarsdale, N.Y., on
September 7, 1918. He arrived at St. Paul’s
School in 1931, where he excelled in math
and played on the squash team.
Mr. Shonk went to Williams College,
where he majored in chemistry and was
captain of the tennis team. He also con-
tinued to improve his squash game, win-
ning the squash championship for three
consecutive years.
He became interested in flying through
his sister, Sally, one of the first female
pilots in the United States. As a child he
also met Charles Lindbergh, who was a
client of his father’s firm, and later he
shared the stage with Amelia Earhart in a
summer play in Dublin. When World War II
began, Mr. Shonk promptly enlisted in the
Navy. He counted his service as a carrier-
based fighter pilot among the most mo-
mentous occasions in his life. Stationed
on the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise in
the South Pacific, he fought in the battles
of Guadalcanal, Santa Cruz, and Coral Sea.
Mr. Shonk married Lucy Lay Clarke in
1944. After his discharge from the Navy,
he was employed by the Interchemical
Company, working at locations in Rhode
Island, South Carolina, and New Jersey
before being hired by Klopman Mills. He
and his wife lived for many years in Glen
Rock, N.J., and spent their summers in
Dublin, N.H., in the home his family had
owned since 1933. He retired in 1980 and
moved there full time.
Mr. Shonk was active in his community,
serving on the town’s conservation com-
mittee and in several leadership positions
at the Dublin Lake Club. At a town meet-
ing earlier this year, he was awarded the
Boston Post Cane, recognizing him as the
oldest resident of Dublin. He was also a
member of Saint James Episcopal Church
in Keene.
Mr. Shonk enjoyed traveling, skiing,
golf, and paddle tennis. According to his
obituary in The Monadnock Ledger, he
was known for his outstanding sports-
manship and genial attitude.
Mr. Shonk was predeceased by his wife,
Lucy, in 2011. He is survived by seven child-
ren, Sally Carey, Cynthia Caddell, Lucy
Shonk, Diana Shonk, Peter M. Shonk Jr.,
Edith Perkins, and David Knight Shonk;
six grandchildren; and three great-
grandchildren.
1937
Steuart Lansing Pittman
who was appoint-
ed assistant
secretary of
defense by
President John F.
Kennedy in 1961
and was assigned
to lead a program
creating fallout
shelters for 180
million Americans at the height of the
Berlin crisis that same year, died on
February 10, 2013, at his family farm in
Davidsonville, Md. He was 93.
The second of Ernest and Estelle Pitt-
man’s three children, Mr. Pittman was born
June 8, 1919, in Albany, N.Y. He spent his
formative years growing up on the East
Side of Manhattan and attended the Buck-
ley School until his arrival at St. Paul’s as
a Second Former in the fall of 1932. Mr.
Pittman enjoyed Old Hundred football
and hockey and served as captain of the
SPS squash team. In addition to his studies,
he was a member of the Scientific Assoc-
iation and the Cadmean Literary Society.
Mr. Pittman entered Yale and gradu-
ated cum laude with the Class of 1941.
He spent two years working in Africa and
Asia for a subsidiary of Pan American
World Airways before joining the U.S.
Marine Corps in 1943. During his tour
of duty, he was sent to China, where he
operated with guerilla groups behind
Japanese lines. He later received a Silver
Star for his valiant service in the East
China Sea on August 21, 1945, of a Chinese
junk that came under fire by a Japanese
ship, whose commanding officer did not
know the war had ended. It was the last
recorded WWII battle under sail fought
by the U.S. Marines.
Upon his return from the war, Mr. Pitt-
man earned his law degree from Yale in
1948. In 1954 he became a founding
partner of the Washington law firm of
Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge (now
Pillsbury, Winthrop, Shaw & Pittman),
where he spent the majority of his career
representing clients in the full spectrum
of investment lending and international
banking matters.
In 1961 he took a three-year hiatus from
his law practice to serve as the nation’s
first civil defense chief under President
John F. Kennedy. Mr. Pittman’s mission
was to create fallout shelters supplied
with enough food, water, and medical
supplies for every American to survive
one to two weeks after a nuclear attack.
The program generated fierce debate and
ultimately failed to gain funding support
from Congress. In a 1987 letter to St. Paul’s,
Mr. Pittman wrote, “I’m hawkish on pre-
paredness and dovish on foreign policy.”
Mr. Pittman retired in the mid-1980s
and moved to Dodon Farm, a 550-acre
estate in Maryland that had been in his
family for more than 300 years. The farm’s
DECEASED
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