George E. Ladd III

LA QUINTA, Calif. -- George E. Ladd III, 82, died at his home in La Quinta on April 25, 2006, after a six-month battle with cancer.

The oldest of the late George E. Ladd Jr. and Helen F. Ladd's three sons, George graduated from Proctor Academy and enlisted in the U.S. Navy, serving as a quartermaster on a submarine (the USS Croaker) in the southern Pacific during World War II. Following the war, he graduated from Brown University in 1949 and worked as a merchandising executive at department stores in Baltimore, Jackson, Miss., and Honolulu, where he retired and lived for many years. He earned a master's of business administration from the university in 1966. He helped establish and served as a trustee of the Pacific Fleet Submarine Memorial Association and its World War II Submarine Memorial and Museum adjacent to the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor. For many years he served as a director of the Lincoln and Therese Filene Foundation in Boston and the Helen and George Ladd Charitable Corporation in Wayne, Maine. He greatly enjoyed yachting and golf, and spent several weeks each summer in Wayne with his family at their camp on Wilson Pond.

George is survived by his wife of 33 years, Evelyne J. Ladd; by his two sons and their families, George Michael Ladd of Wayne, his wife, Carolyn Gordon Ladd, and their two children, Jennifer Lynn Ladd of Fair Haven, N.J., and Christopher Gordon Ladd of Brooklyn, N.Y., and the Rev. David Justice Ladd of Waynesboro, Va., his wife, Donna Jean Ladd, and their two children, Rebecca Malia Ladd and Andrew Justice Ladd, all of Waynesboro.

Catherine Elizabeth Ladd, George's daughter by an earlier marriage, predeceased her father in 2004.

George's two brothers, Lincoln F. Ladd and his wife, Gloria Williams Ladd, of Wayne, and Dr. Robert M. Ladd of Manchester, Maine, also survive, as do numerous cousins, nephews and nieces.

No immediate memorial service is planned, but celebrations of George's life will be held this summer in Honolulu and Wayne.