Milton "Milt" Ray

Milton "Milt" Ray
1921 - 2020
Milton ("Milt") Ray died July 28 in Eugene, Oregon. He was 99. His family provided the following:
Milt Ray was born June 1921 in Rochester, NY to Philip and Lilly ("Lena") Ray, both immigrants from Eastern Europe. He spent his early years in the Bronx, where he loved playing stickball and family members took him to see the Yankee greats Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. During the Great Depression, his family moved to Rochester, NY after losing their New York City cab business and the family savings. He graduated high school at age 16, and for two years attended Albany State University (now SUNY Albany) where he played college basketball. After his second year of college, with war raging in Europe, Milt moved to Washington D.C. and worked for several years on the United States Lend-Lease Program supplying allies with food, oil and materials. In 1942 he joined the US Air Corps and was stationed in England during 1944 and 1945. Despite persistent V-2 attacks, Milt visited London when he was on leave to watch Laurence Olivier and other greats in Shakespeare productions. Those productions during the final years of the war made Milt a lifelong lover of theatre. He kept the London playbills for his remaining 75 years.
After the war, Milt returned to New York and enrolled at the University of Rochester on the GI Bill to complete his undergraduate education. Shortly after beginning his studies in Rochester, he met Arlyne ("Arly") on a Halloween blind date in 1945, and they were married a few months later on January 6, 1946. He graduated from the University of Rochester in 1947, and Milt and Arly then moved to Chicago so Milt could attend the University of Chicago Law School. During law school, Milt served as Managing Editor of the Law Review and graduated in 1950.
After two years of private law practice in Chicago, he joined Baxter Laboratories (now Baxter International) as corporate legal counsel and became a licensed CPA. In 1954, Milt and Arly celebrated the birth of their son, Glenn. In 1963 the family moved to Fullerton, California, where Milt joined Hunt Foods & Industries (and its successor Norton Simon, Inc.) as General Tax Counsel and Director of Taxes. He also served as Counsel to the Norton Simon Foundation from 1963 to 1970 as it acquired the artworks that became the collection that established the renowned Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, California.
In California, Milt and his family became very involved with horses. Glenn and Arly began showing horses competitively, and Milt was an enthusiastic supporter. In 1969 Rene Berry, a fellow show horse rider and friend of Glenn's, asked Milt and Arly to become her legal guardians after the death of her parents. In 1971, once Glenn and Rene had finished high school, Milt and Arly moved to Eugene, Oregon where Milt became a Professor at the University of Oregon School of Law. In 1972 Milt and Arly became the legal guardians of Rene's younger sister Linda Berry. From 1971 to 1981 Milt taught classes in Income Tax, Corporate Tax, Estate & Gift Tax, Business and Estate Planning, and Accounting for Lawyers. During his years in Eugene, Milt also served as a member of the board of directors of the Willamette Valley Company and several NYSE listed companies.
In 1980, after the birth of their first grandchild in California, Milt and Arly began splitting their time between Eugene and Southern California. When their second grandchild was born in 1983, they bought a home in Laguna Niguel, California near the grandchildren and spent the bulk of their time there. Milt loved few things more than cheering on his grandsons at baseball games, regaling them with stories, and introducing them to novel tax strategies.
Milt and Arly celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 1996, with friends and family joining from across the United States. Arly passed ten years later in 2006, and shortly thereafter Milt moved back to Eugene. In 2011 at his 90th birthday, Milt and his family established the Milton Ray Family Tax Law Scholarship at the University of Oregon School of Law to provide scholarships for outstanding law students whose focus is on the field of tax law. As a tireless "Duck" fan, Milt loved to attend Oregon football and basketball games and track events. Even through age 96 he continued to attend many games to see the Ducks in person.
Milt was a voracious reader. From early childhood until his late 90s, he made weekly trips to the library and returned home with an armful of books, all of which he somehow managed to read. These books filled his ever-active mind with new ideas, concerns, and questions. In his later years, a perfect day consisted of an afternoon of swimming, followed by a long poolside discussion about how to "solve the world's problems," capped with a glass of scotch. Thankfully, he had many friends in Eugene with swimming pools and a shared interest in intellectual discussions (and in some cases, scotch). During the colder and rainier months, Milt enjoyed sparring by phone or in person with his grandsons and his friends in Eugene over public policy debates of the day. Even if those discussions did not end in agreement, Milt's lifelong emphasis on thought and learning left a powerful, lasting impression on all who knew him.
Milt is survived by his son Glenn and his wife Diane of Jackson Hole, WY; his grandson Andy, his wife Karen, and their three children (Milt's great grandchildren); his grandson Adam and his wife Debbie; his beloved sister Harriet Allentuch; Rene and Linda Berry; and Rene's daughter Zajj Daugherty.
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