Lon Hocker Jr.

WOODS HOLE - Lon Hocker Jr., 96, husband of Esther Sands Hocker for nearly 70 years, passed away at their Woods Hole home on Wednesday, Jan. 31, 2007.

A Woods Hole resident since the 1960s, Mr. Hocker was born in St. Louis, Mo., and graduated from Princeton. While in college, he was a member of the US Fencing team, and was mid-west sabre fencing champion for several years.

A graduate of Washington University Law School, Mr. Hocker was a trial lawyer for nearly 50 years. His varied career included arguing before the US Supreme Court. Among many distinctions in the legal profession, he served as president of the American College of Trial Lawyers, and of the St. Louis Bar Association. He was a partner in the St. Louis law firm of Hocker, Goodwin & MacGreevey, and was a director of numerous corporate and nonprofit boards.

In World War II, he served in the Navy as Commanding Officer of the USS LST 889 in the Pacific theater, from 1944 to 1945, and as recently as 2004, traveled to reunions of the members of his crew.

In 1955, he was appointed Chief Hearings Counsel, US Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Rights, which worked to undo the erosion of individual constitutional rights in the McCarthy era.

He ran twice for major public office, first in 1956, as Republican nominee for Governor of Missouri and then, in 1960, as Republican nominee for US Senator from Missouri.

Always an avid sailor, he had attended Culver Summer Naval School as a teenager. In retirement in Woods Hole, over the years he had a series of small boats, including an 18 foot sailboat that folded in half like a clam for ease of towing, and a 26-foot sailboat that he bought as a bare hull, filled with 6,000 pounds of lead shot as ballast, and towed east from Arkansas to Woods Hole, where he finished the decks and extensive woodwork himself.

Interested in water conservation, for years the Hockers had a windmill, which Mr. Hocker erected on their property to recycle the water they used for their lawn. He was a member of the Woods Hole Golf Club and the Church of the Messiah in Woods Hole, and sang in the greater Falmouth mostly all-male men's chorus.

In addition to his wife, Esther, he is survived by a daughter, Priscilla Hocker Claman of Weston; son, Lon Hocker III of Hilo, Hawaii; five grandchildren, including Emily Jackson of Falmouth; and 12 great-grandchildren.

A funeral service will be held in The Church of the Messiah, Woods Hole, on Saturday, Feb. 10, at 4 p.m.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Mr. Hocker's memory to the Cape Cod Chapter of the American Red Cross, 286 South St., Hyannis, MA 02601.