Henry Birge Kellogg

1921 - 2017

Kellogg, Henry B. Age 95 Henry Birge Kellogg died peacefully on April 6, 2017, at Mountain View Community, the nursing home for Carroll County, New Hampshire. Known to family and friends as Hank, he was 95 years old at his death. He was a direct descendant of the Martin Kellogg family of Newington, Connecticut. Surviving family members include his son David Henry Kellogg and his wife Twila Beth Kellogg, of Arlington, Virginia. David Kellogg is Chairman, CEO and President of Solers, Inc., an information technology solutions provider and proprietary trading firm headquartered in Arlington, Virginia. In the years immediately before his death, Hank was a resident of Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, where he leaves behind his wife of 70 years, Zell Rogers Kellogg, and his son and daughter-in-law, Timothy Rogers Kellogg and Mary Agnes Kellogg. In addition, he is survived by his son Mark Clifford Kellogg and spouse Tony Waag, of New York City; as well as eight grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his daughter Sarah Kellogg Otis, who died of cancer in 2008. His surviving grandchildren are Amy Paige Kellogg, Anne-Marie Denise Kellogg, Christine Jane Kellogg, Jade Anna (Otis) Horne, Lara Otis Flint, Martin Jeffrey Kellogg, Rachel Jeanne Kellogg and Stephanie Anne (Kellogg) McAllister. Surviving great-grandchildren are Adrian Michael McAllister, Bryce McAllister, Caden Andrew McAllister, Devin McAllister, Eric Otis Horne, Ethan Henry Flint, Kailey Anne McAllister, Kyle Matthew Kellogg and Matthew David Horne. Hank was born on October 23, 1921, at 264 Everit Street in New Haven, Connecticut, the second child of Timothy Henry Kellogg and Rachael Birge Kellogg. He was preceded in death by both of his parents, as well as his older sister, Dorothy, who was born in 1920 and died in an automobile accident in 1946, and his younger sister, Rachael, who was born in 1925 and died in 2007 after falling in her home in Newington. The family moved to 49 North Beacon Street in Hartford, Connecticut, when Hank was a child. He walked to Noah Webster School during his elementary years and commuted by bus and train to secondary school at The Loomis School (now Loomis Chaffee) in Windsor, where he graduated in 1939. He received degrees from Yale University (Bachelor of Engineering, Class of 1943) and the University of Pittsburgh (Masters of Business Administration, Class of 1970). He served during World War II in the United States Army Air Force as a Weather Officer at Moody Field, Georgia, and Flight Controller with the 481st, 437th, 18th and 305th Flight Control Squadrons in Guam, Saipan, Tinian, Okinawa and Oahu. He separated from the Army on September 23, 1946, with the rank of Captain, and maintained a keen interest in weather observation and aviation throughout his life. He received an honorable discharge from the Air Force Reserve in May 1955, following the end of the Korean War. In December 1943, Hank met his future wife at a dance at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida, where she was a student and he was in military training nearby. They were married on August 14, 1946, in Blowing Rock, North Carolina, and began their life together in Tolland, Connecticut, where their first child was born. After returning from the war, Hank joined Pratt & Whitney in East Hartford, Connecticut, where he worked on development of aviation gas turbines, popularly known as jet engines. He later moved to Westinghouse Electric, where he continued to work on development of jet engines and, later, on atomic power plants. From 1949 to 1959, he moved his family from Media, Pennsylvania to Mission, Kansas; Derby, England; and Monroeville, Pennsylvania as he changed assignments with Westinghouse. Hank retired from Westinghouse in 1979 and moved with Zell to Massachusetts, where they lived in Andover, Marblehead and Chatham until 2014. After retiring from Westinghouse, Hank continued to work until age 85 at a variety of jobs, including teaching strength training at the Marblehead YMCA and JCC. In addition, he attended art classes at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, and was active in the arts community in Marblehead. Throughout his long life, Hank enjoyed word games and jokes, including puns and pig Latin at Sunday dinners, and challenged himself with physical activities such as rowing and bicycling. He watched virtually no television, and read almost exclusively for information rather than pleasure. At the urging of his Aunt Anna, he sang in the youth choir at the Episcopal Church in Hartford, where he received an award of 25 cents per week. As an adult, Hank attended Presbyterian and Unitarian churches at various times, but remained a skeptic regarding religion, politics and other imponderables. He was fond of the maxim, "Believe nothing you hear and only half what you read." He kept detailed notebooks for six decades with odometer readings and gasoline purchases for his cars, and as his memory failed in the last 10 years of his life, he extended his note-taking to other daily activities. Despite advancing dementia, he continued to recognize visitors at Mountain View and recalled many episodes from his early life in Hartford. Family members will gather in late April for a memorial service honoring Hank at the Newington Congregational Church, followed by interment of his cremated remains in the family plot at Center Cemetery, Newington, Connecticut. 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