JOHN H. "JACK" FORTÉ

1924 - 2022

FORTÉ, John H. "Jack" Boston Wool Merchant Jack was born in Boston on May 6, 1924, the fourth son of Orville W. Forté and Helen Henkels Forté of Waban, MA. He had three older brothers, Orville W. Forté, Jr. (Junie), Paul H. (Bud), Donald (Dee), and younger sister Elizabeth (Beth) and brother William R. (Bill), all of whom predeceased him. He married Sally Marsh of Waban, in 1948, and lived in Weston, MA for sixty years, where he raised his daughters Marsha (Jon Westerlund) of Winter Park, CO and Cheryl of West Newton, MA. He died in Naples, FL, his retirement home, on December 22, 2022, at the age of 98. Jack attended Phillips Exeter Academy, captaining the baseball team his senior year, and graduated in 1942. He then started at Harvard College before joining the American Field Service during WWII. Ineligible for the American Armed Services due to a head injury as a boy, he drove ambulances for AFS in Cassino in central Italy. He returned to Harvard, where he played second base and also captained the baseball team. His final game was against the Yale team led by George H.W. Bush. After graduating with the class of 1946, Jack joined Forté, Dupee, Sawyer Co. on Summer St., in Boston, a wool business founded by his father in 1921. The Boston Wool District was a burgeoning place, supplying the many mills of New England, an economy based, at that time, on the manufacture of textiles and shoes. They supplied wool for blankets and uniforms, and later created a unique niche that filled the demand for specialty fibers such as cashmere, camel hair, alpaca and mohair for garments. Boston was the center of the wool trade and prospered until the late 1950's, when the rise of synthetic fibers and labor costs forced the closure of many regional mills and migration south, where labor costs were lower. It was a challenging time for Forté, Dupee, Sawyer Co., but under Jack's skillful leadership, the business survived. With characteristic calm he took risks, negotiating generous lines of credit to source odd lots of domestic wool. These were processed into large quantities of a uniform product, available on-demand, sufficient to supply a customer's entire fashion season. In the last quarter of the 20th century, Forté, Dupee, Sawyer Co. became and remained the leading wool merchant in the country. Jack embraced philanthropy, establishing scholarships at Phillips Exeter Academy and AFS and making generous grants to local hospitals and charities. He was a stellar athlete with a passion for golf and skiing. He shot eight holes in one and was club champion at Brae Burn Country Club in West Newton, where he first met his bride, Sally, on the ski hill in his early twenties. He had his last ace at Hole-in-the-Wall Golf Club, in Naples, at the age of ninety. He was a fearless skier and no mogul daunted him. He plied the slopes of Aspen and Winter Park into his seventies and was an enthusiastic paddle tennis player at Brae Burn. His cheerful demeanor and wit made him a beloved teammate and opponent. He will always be remembered for his unwavering interest in the lives of all he met. He was humble, friendly and engaging until the end. He will never be forgotten.

View the online memorial for John H. "Jack" FORTÉ