Henry H. Enos

1927 - 2016

Enos, Henry H.
Henry H. Enos passed away on Sunday, March 20, 2016. A resident of Jacksonville since 1996, Hank originally hailed from Greenwich, CT, where he was born in 1927 and where he'd embarked on what would prove to be the two defining passions of his life – the lure of the sea and the love of Joan, his wife of 60 years.
In his youth, Hank played a variety of sports – none of them with distinction, he would admit – but discovered he enjoyed sailing most of all. He learned the ropes as a member of the junior sailing program at the Indian Harbor Yacht Club in Greenwich. After graduating from Yale in 1950 with a degree in civil engineering, Hank served in Germany with the US Army Corps of Engineers. Upon his return, Hank went to work in the printing firm of Stearns & Beale of New York which specialized in color offset lithography. Originally hired as a sales representative, he gradually found he could make himself more useful maintaining the large 4-color printing presses. As soon as his work week was through, however, Hank would head for the water. He saw success racing a variety of one-design sloops, including the Luders-16 in which he went on to win the international championship in 1955.
Just over a year earlier, Hank had met Joan Reid who was the duty nurse on the post-operative ward of the Greenwich Hospital where he happened to be recovering from an emergency appendectomy. He was immediately smitten and made a nuisance of himself until Nurse Reid finally agreed to have dinner with him. The two were married in December, 1954.
Once he and Joan had started a family, boat ownership became too expensive a proposition. So the enterprising Hank taught himself celestial navigation – the art of plotting position and course by measuring the elevations of prominent stars in the twilight sky. Thus was he able to sign on as a navigator on one of several ocean-racing yachts sailing out of Indian Harbor. He competed in countless weekend regattas on Long Island Sound and numerous off-shore races as well, including the famous Newport-Bermuda race more than a dozen times, and no fewer than half a dozen transatlantic voyages.
Although none of Hank's four children would ever develop his fondness for the sea, each had the chance to ship out with him and witness for themselves the transformative effects of wind and wave on their care-worn father. His calloused hands, stained with grease and ink from his job as a press mechanic, would wash clean after three-days in salt water, and his spirit would be restored.
Since the death of his beloved wife, Joan, almost a year ago, Henry the Navigator has been lost at sea. Now, at last, the two are reunited, walking together along a distant shore.
A private memorial service is anticipated. In lieu of flowers, Hank's children would welcome any gift in their father's memory to the Northeast Florida Community Hospice, 4266 Sunbeam Road, Jacksonville FL 32257.
Arrangements by Quinn-Shalz Family Funeral Home, Jacksonville Beach, FL.