Charles Sayre

1949 - 2021

On November 24, 2021, Charles Franklin Sayre passed away in Palm Springs, where he had lived at least part-time since 1999. He was born May 13, 1949 in Boulder, Colorado to John Marshall Sayre and Jean Miller Sayre-the first baby born in the hospital that Friday the 13th and at birth winner of a $100 US Savings Bond. He grew up in Boulder, where he skied for the Alpine Junior Racing Program and, in the 9th grade, won the Pikes Peak Slalom against all high school ski teams on the eastern slope of the Colorado Rockies. A year later, he left Boulder for the Philips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, where he became a three-sport varsity athlete in football, swimming, and lacrosse. In 1972, he graduated from Harvard University, where he majored in Art History, and subsequently went on to graduate school in Art History at Yale, writing his dissertation on illustrations of the classic medieval Japanese text, The Tales of Ise. Doctorate in hand, he taught Art History first at Swarthmore College, outside Philadelphia, and then at Oakland University in Detroit. But teaching, he realized, was not his calling. He wanted to be more engaged with the Asia that he had come to know and love. He enrolled in law school at UCLA, with its emphasis on the law of the Pacific Rim, and subsequently was awarded his Doctor of Jurisprudence. In his professional legal life, he worked first, for many years, as Chief Counsel, Coca-Cola Southeast Asia, headquartered in Bangkok. He spoke fluent Japanese, excellent Thai, passable Mandarin, and could get by in about half-a-dozen other Asian languages. In 2000, he was hired away from Coke by Enron Corporation, where he worked as Vice President and Assistant General Counsel until the company's notorious bankruptcy in 2007. Like all others in the corporation, he lost everything, but the federal government hired him back to represent Enron in the ensuing bankruptcy litigation. He completed his career as Senior Attorney for Florida Gas and Electric (now NextEra Energy), from which he retired in 2016. His greatest love however-aside from his two dachshunds-was the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. He served as trustee of the museum from December 2007 to June 2021, during which time he was Chair of the Collections Committee and the Board's Secretary from 2014 to 2019. He donated a wide range of Native American works to the museum and, in 2015, his important collection of Southeast Asian textiles. He possessed a dry, often wicked and sardonic sense of humor that enlivened all his conversations at the museum, and, in his last days, even entertained his doctors. He is preceded in death by his parents, his sister Ann Sayre Taggart, his brother John Marshall, Jr., and his partner Steve Cannon. He is survived by his beloved dachshunds, Fang and Snag, his brother Henry Marshall (Sandy Brooke), of Bend, Oregon, his niece Julia Sayre Donnelly, and six nephews, Robert Sayre, John Sayre, Joseph Sayre, Charlie Sayre, Christopher Taggart and Matthew Taggart. He was a great uncle and as fond of his niece and nephews as he was his dogs. Those wishing to remember Frank are invited to contribute in his name to Southern California Dachshund Relief, Inc., a 501 ( c ) 3 Non-profit, P.O. Box 2634, La Habra, CA 90631, or online at https://scdr.org/donate.