Clarence E. Galston

GALSTON, Clarence E. Lawyer and insurance executive, died at 100 on October 27, 2009 at his home in Westwood, MA. The son of a federal district judge, he was raised in Woodmere, Long Island. He attended Woodmere (now Lawrence Woodmere) Academy, which his father had founded. After a year at Exeter, he went to Harvard, earning the BA magna cum laude in 1930 and LLB (later JD) in 1933. He joined the law firm of Spence Hopkins & Walser in New York and became a partner in 1940. He served in 1942-44 in the Army Air Force in England as Combat Intelligence Officer under Col. Curtis LeMay in the 305th Bombardment Group, 8th Air Force, directing strikes on targets in Germany and France; afterward he joined the Pentagon staff of Gen. Trubee Davison and was assigned to assess the postwar potential of corporations that supplied airframes and engines. He was discharged as Colonel in the U.S. Air Force Reserve. In 1948 he became president of the Motor Haulage Company in NYC and oversaw its merger with U. S. Trucking Company, which he served as vice president. In 1960 he joined Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association and College Retirement and Equity Fund (TIAA-CREF) as general counsel and secretary and later became executive vice-president. After his retirement in 1974 he directed the Life Insurance Council of New York (LICONY), an industry association based in Albany. Mr. Galston was married in 1937 to Constance Matthiessen. The couple lived in Huntington, Long Island, and had three children. They were divorced in 1952. Three years later Mr. Galston married Nina Moore Shields, a lawyer and member of the faculty of the Parker School of Foreign and Comparative Law at Columbia University, who died in 1997. He was a former treasurer and member of the executive committee of the Association of the Bar of New York City. He was a founder in 1946 of the East Woods School in Oyster Bay NY and served as its president. He was treasurer of the Cold Spring Harbor Biological Laboratory from 1974 to 1980. An active supporter of Phillips Exeter and Harvard, he received the John Phillips Award from Exeter in 1997, the highest honor given by the school to an alumnus. He was president of the Cold Spring Harbor Beach Club in 1960-62 and of the Ausable Club-Adirondack Mountain Reserve in St Huberts NY from 1984 to 1988. A tournament bridge player, tennis player, and racing sailor, Mr. Galston remained a serious golfer into his late 90s. He was a regular at U. S. Seniors golf events and at the annual Father-Son Tournament in Garden City, where he competed until last year. He is survived by his son, John Galston, of Colorado Springs, CO; two daughters, Jill Galston Walsh, of Santa Monica, CA, and Linda Galston Fates, of Ipswich, MA; and a stepson, William Shields, of Hamilton, MA. He leaves 12 grandchildren and 20 great-grandchildren. The funeral will be held at 2 pm on Monday, November 2, at Trinity Episcopal Church, Concord MA. Contributions may be made to the Ausable Club Preservation Foundation, St Hubert's NY 12943.