Page 52 - Alumni Horae: Vol. 93, No. 2 Winter 2013

50
Remembered fondly as “hilarious with
his great dry wit,” Mr. Payson enjoyed
traveling, exploring, and the outdoors,
with a particular passion for boating. He
was predeceased in 2009 by his beloved
second wife, Janet. He is survived by his
daughters, Wendy Kerr and Susan Wright;
sister, Lorna Dorsey; stepsons, Charles F.
Pingree and Sumner Pingree III; and
many nieces and nephews.
1941
Donald Davidson “Dave”
Dodge Jr.
an avid skier and outdoorsman with a
passion for all of life’s natural and unex-
pected beauty, died at his home in Boze-
man, Mont., on October 17, 2012, just 10
days after his 89th birthday and four
months after the death of his beloved
wife, Ruth.
Born in Hollyport, England, on Octo-
ber 7, 1923, to Donald Davidson Dodge
and Gertrude Henry Dodge, he attended
Chestnut Hill Academy in Philadelphia,
Pa., before joining the Third Form at St.
Paul’s in the fall of 1937. He took to his
studies quickly and successfully at St.
Paul’s, with one of his teachers describ-
ing him as “an industrious, somewhat
imaginative student whose good grades
are won by steady effort.” Mr. Dodge was
also a member of the Student Council, Le
Cercle Français, and Der Deutsche Verein.
He went on to Princeton University,
graduating with a degree in geology. He
served his country as a ski troop of the
Tenth Mountain Division and was wounded
in Italy on Mt. Belvedere in February 1945.
On July 6, 1946, Mr. Dodge married Ruth
Drayton, daughter of Frederick R. “Fritz”
Drayton of the Form of 1913 and sister
of Frederick R. Drayton Jr. ’42, in Wichita,
Kan., where he was working as a geologist
for Texaco.
Mr. Dodge led a successful career in
the oil industry. In 1956 he and Douglas
Carver of Woodside, Calif., established
Carver-Dodge Oil Company in Denver.
Ten years later, the two joined forces with
Donald Todd and Independent Indonesian
American Petroleum Company to explore
the potential for offshore drilling in the
Java Sea, later signing an unprecedented
product-sharing agreement. Five years
later, in 1970, Carver-Dodge was acquired
by Reading & Bates Offshore Drilling Com-
pany, and Mr. Dodge continued his work
on the board of directors. From 1976 to
2009, Mr. Dodge and Mr. Carver teamed
up again with two partners to pursue
natural gas production in Colorado.
In later years, Mr. and Mrs. Dodge moved
to Bozeman, Mont., where they could enjoy
the outdoors to the fullest. He was a gen-
erous supporter of St. Paul’s, the Wild
Trout Research Lab, and Montana State
University, among other interests.
In addition to the death of Ruth, his
wife of 65 years, Mr. Dodge was prede-
ceased by his his two sisters, Cornelia
Fraley and Esther Vetterleine. He is
survived by his children, Diana, Sallie,
and Donald; six grandchildren; one
great-grandchild; his brother, Charles
H.W. Dodge ’47; and many nieces and
nephews.
1942
Cary Forney Baker Jr.
loved the opera,
books, and his
church, once
telling his SPS
formmates how
proud he was of
his work dishing
out “the best free
meal in New York”
at the congrega-
tion’s soup kitchen in Manhattan.
Mr. Baker, 87, died March 8, 2012, at the
N.H. Veterans Home in Tilton, where he’d
proudly displayed a St. Paul’s banner on
his bedroom wall. He left no survivors,
but that banner was just one way he main-
tained close ties with his alma mater.
He was a regular at alumni phonathons,
wrote frequent letters to School admin-
istrators praising their work, and offered
to arrange volunteer opportunities at the
soup kitchen for students.
Mr. Baker came to St. Paul’s in 1938 after
a childhood in Atlanta, Ga. He was a mem-
ber of the Library Association, the Con-
cordian Literary Society, and the Glee
Club. After graduating in 1942, like many
of his peers he entered Princeton Univer-
sity as a member of a special wartime sum-
mer class. He joined ROTC and was called
to active duty in early 1943. Mr. Baker was
assigned to the Army Air Corps and, after
studying Japanese at Yale, served in the
Pacific decoding Japanese radio messages.
After the war, Mr. Baker graduated
from Princeton magna cum laude and
worked for McGraw-Hill, selling and later
editing textbooks. He enjoyed his work
because it allowed him to travel, but he
was most proud of his volunteer efforts
at the Church of the Holy Apostles in
Manhattan. He served on the vestry for
25 years and was a council member for
the Diocese of New York. The challenges
of an urban church were great, he wrote
to his formmates in advance of their 50th
anniversary, but well worth his time.
“My church is a struggling inner-city
one,” he wrote. “Striving to provide assist-
ance and guidance, both spiritual and
temporal, to the troubled people, young
and old, of our city...it’s been a challeng-
ing, stimulating, sometimes discouraging,
more often rewarding experience.”
Mr. Baker later moved to Fairfield, Conn.,
where he attended St. Paul’s Episcopal
Church. The building, he wrote in a letter
to the School, “is built in a 19th-century
Gothic Revival not unlike the SPS Chapel.”
The opera remained one of his favorite
ways to pass an evening, and he made fre-
quent trips into the city for performances.
It’s unclear when Mr. Baker moved to
the Veterans Home, but he spoke so fondly
of his time at St. Paul’s that the staff there
contacted the School because they wanted
to bring him to Concord for a visit.
A few months before his death, Mr. Baker
moved into a shared room with too little
wall space for the banner. Someone handl-
ing his estate returned it to St. Paul’s,
where it has been preserved with other
School artifacts.
1943
Donald Murray Culver
a former Marine,
businessman, and
cattle rancher,
passed away after
a battle with can-
cer on June 28,
2012, at his home
in Lafayette, Colo.
He was born on
March 28, 1925,
in Baltimore, Md., and attended the Gil-
man School in Baltimore before entering
St. Paul’s School as a Second Former in
1938. He became an active member of the
Scientific Association, played football for
DECEASED