Walter Charles Klein

A memorial service for former township resident Walter Charles Klein will be held Monday, Dec. 2, at 3 p.m., at St. James Episcopal Church, 865 Madison Ave., New York City.

Mr. Klein died Oct. 28 in New York City.

Born in 1918 in New York City, he attended Horace Mann School in New York City, then attended a gymnasium in Vienna, Austria, where he learned German, before returning to the United States to graduate from Harvard University in three years.

He met his first wife, the former Mary Kennard Eddy of St. Louis, Mo., while he was attending Harvard University, and she was attending Wellesley College.

Mr. Klein worked for Swift & Co. in Chicago, Ill., and Buenos Aires, Argentina. He joined Bunge Corp. in New York City in 1947, the North American arm of what is now Bunge, Ltd.

Over the next 43 years, he transformed a small commodity business into an integrated agribusiness operation in North America, with grain elevators, oilseed and grain processing plants, and river barges focused along the Mississippi River and tributaries south of St. Louis. Mr. Klein was a long-time resident of Maplewood and then the township. He was a member of the Orange Lawn Tennis Club in South Orange, the Short Hills Club and Baltusrol Golf Club in Springfield. In New York City, he was member of the Knickerbocker Club.

He endowed a Harvard professorship, Harvard student scholarships, and provided funding for a wing of Harvard University's Barker Center for the Humanities, each bearing his name.

He was also actively involved with the Fogg Museum at Harvard University, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York Public Library. After Mary died, he married his second wife, Virgilia ("Virgie").

Mr. Klein, who was predeceased by his first wife, is survived by his second wife, Virgilia; a son, John of Washington, D.C.; a daughter, Margaret of New York City; and three grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers, donations in Mr. Klein's memory may be made to the Central Park Conservancy, 14 E. 60th St., New York, NY, 10022, or Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan New Jersey, 151 Washington St., Newark, NJ, 07102.