Page 57 - Alumni Horae: Vol. 93, No. 4 Summer 2013

of the Form of 1937. But it was his exper-
ience with the Missionary Society that
most informed the direction of his life.
“Dr. [Sam] Drury, the School’s revered
Rector, had been a missionary in China,
and he tried to imbue us boys with a sense
of obligation to try to improve the lives
of those less fortunate,” Tony wrote in his
2007 autobiography, Uncharted Course:
The Voyage of My Life.
At the end of the first SPS summer camp,
in 1935, he drove two of the campers, a
pair of brothers, home to the Lower East
Side of Manhattan. Discovering their drab
apartment and careworn mother hardened
Tony’s resolve to start his own camp.
The summer after his SPS graduation,
Tony established Boys Harbor on Long
Island with kids from the St. Paul’s camp
as the first campers. The counselors in-
cluded Claiborne Pell, the future Rhode
Island senator, and SPS friends John V.
Lindsay ’40, the future New York mayor,
and Paul Moore Jr. ’37, the future Episcopal
bishop of New York.
World War II interrupted both Tony’s
Princeton career and the growth of the
camp. He enlisted in the Navy and served
as an attaché in Buenos Aires before taking
command of a troop landing ship, the LST
530. Captain of his own vessel and com-
mander of several others, Tony ran dozens
of missions across the English Channel on
D-Day in 1944 onto the fortified Nor-
mandy beaches. He then was sent to the
fighting in the Pacific, where he ferried
troops and equipment for the battle of
Okinawa. He earned three battle stars
and a Bronze Star.
After the war, he resumed camp opera-
tions, settling the organization in 1954
into its long-term home at Three Mile
Harbor, near East Hampton. That year,
Tony raised the money to establish and
run a base in Manhattan, which offered
campers year-round counseling and
tutoring. Although Tony had careers in
business, starting and running several
family real estate and development com-
panies, the Harbor was his life’s work.
In time, it became clear that year-round
education programs in New York – in the
arts, math and sciences, languages, social
studies, and sports – were more import-
ant to the advancement of young people
than the summer camp, and the city site
became the Harbor’s hub, with the Long
Island campus a summer satellite.
Tony’s immense patriotism and his
innate empathy and capacity to make
others feel loved were at the heart of the
Harbor. “He was like a father to me,” said
Edward “Eddie” Flores, a New York lawyer,
who was among a handful of former
campers who spoke at Tony’s memorial
service in New York City in June. Flores
had never been beyond Spanish Harlem
when he boarded a yellow school bus in
the 1970s in the city and headed for East
Hampton, a two-hour journey that would
change his life and thousands of other
Harbor alums who went on to successful
professional lives.
Tony’s remarkable friendships strad-
dled every conceivable division in our
stratified society. He reached lovingly
and earnestly across many lines for his
entire life because he believed in each
one of us. He remained in touch to the
end with hundreds of friends and family,
writing letters, making calls, always ex-
pressing interest.
Tony’s own family were part of the camp,
living among the campers, teaching them
to swim and sail, to tend livestock and
grow vegetables, shepherding them to
church on Sundays and kneeling with
them for evening prayers.
Tony’s life was not without struggle and
pain. He was often mistaken as a man of
great wealth, or at least more than enough
to run the Harbor without outside finan-
cial help, which was a lifelong battle. At
home, his first three marriages to Alice
Rutgers, Elizabeth Ordway, and Diane
Douglas ended in divorce, due partly, he
explained, to his devotion to the Harbor
and its kids. He was separated from his
fourth wife, the former Maria de Lourdes
“Luly” Alcebo, and spent his last decade
with Awilda Penney.
Tony leaves behind six sons, Anthony
Drexel Duke Jr. ’60, Nicholas, John, Doug-
las, Washington, and James; four daugh-
ters, Cordelia Duke Jung, Josephine Duke
Brown, December Duke McSherry, and
Lulita Duke Reed; 22 grandchildren; and
10 great-grandchildren. His greatest sad-
ness came with the 1989 suicide of his son,
Barclay Robertson Duke, at the age of 28.
He also left Boys & Girls Harbor thriv-
ing in New York City, independent of its
founder, achieving his lifelong dream. 57