James B. Satterthwaite

James B. Satterthwaite, 93
     FREEPORT -- James B. Satterthwaite, 93, died Jan. 23, 2008, at Hawthorne House Rehabilitation Center with his wife Natica of 47 years at his bedside. Three weeks before, the two had just returned from shopping when Jim fell, breaking his hip which was repaired surgically but his general condition did not recover.
     Born in Short Hills, N.J., on May 8, 1914, he was the son of Thomas Wilkinson Satterthwaite and Lucile Carns Weeks Satterthwaite. He attended local schools in Short Hills and St. Paul's preparatory school in Concord, N.H. Following graduation from Yale University in 1936, he received a Mellon Scholarship for two years of graduate study at Cambridge University in England. In 1938, he returned to the States to teach for two years at Lafayette College in Easton, Pa., and then began a long career at the Groton School in Groton, Mass. In 1942, he took a leave of absence to serve in the United States Navy, spending the next three years in Washington, D.C., and Colorado, decrypting Japanese code messages for the War Department. He returned to Groton in 1945 where he became chairman of the English Department and coached the varsity crew. He was a dormitory master and drama coach as well, and sang in the Groton choir.
     In 1960, he married Natica Bates. It was the beginning of a profound partnership and abiding love. He was a handsome man of intelligence, charm, and wit. I thought he was a great guy, Tica said in her understated way. He had strong opinions, she said, but he could always be persuaded by the truth. They spent his sabbatical leaves in foreign travel and meeting new people. After his retirement from Groton in 1971, he and Tica moved to Freeport where he taught at North Yarmouth Academy and Bowdoin College, joined the Maine Civil Liberties Union, worked with Literacy Volunteers, was a docent at the Walker Art Museum, and studied creative writing at the University of Southern Maine. He was a member of St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Brunswick, the Harraseeket Yacht club, the Boston Athenium, and the Fraternity Club. Quietly, he and Tica gave encouragement and financial help to adopted children.
     A vigorous outdoorsman, he was dedicated to land preservation on a near-50-acre land trust called Tidebrook that he and Tica created and maintained as a quiet place, planting and cataloguing trees and shrubs and daffodils and opening trails for visitors. Kenneth Spirer, a trustee of Tidebrook, remembers Jim leading trustees around the property and pointing out every
    tree and explaining why it was in a particular spot.
     Jim had a wonderful sense of humor and a twinkle in a his eye, said Susan Inches, another trustee and cousin. I used to love to go sailing with Jim and Tica. Jim, of course, was always captain of the ship. A realist about aging and even dying, he was fond of saying that he had recently lost a syllable: he was no longer an older man, he was now an old one.
     He enjoyed numerous long and enduring friendships, many of them with former students, and during his last weeks he visited daily with devoted friends and family. On the morning of the day he died, he asked especially to see Maeve, his beloved kerry blue terrier, who spent the rest of the day sleeping on the floor beside the bed.
     His years of teaching could best be characterized by a desire to bring out each student's best. Frederick Kellogg, a trustee and former student, spoke of Jim's great influence as both coach and teacher, producing superb students and winning crews and even an Olympic oarsman. His sense of excellence in the use of the English language, and both humor and decency in his approach to life, were major factors in the Groton School education, Kellogg said.
     A former student and friend for more than 50 years, Emory Clark said, 'Slats' is how we knew him (extraordinarily thin). 'Mr. Satterthwaite' is how we addressed him. He taught us English (how to read and write) in his Groton classroom. He formed us into relatively fast crews on the Nashua River. In his dorm he let us express ourselves and guided us with his dry wit.
     The remarkable range of his intellect and interests is indicated by the topics of the 22 papers he delivered as a member of the Fraternity Club, from Berryman, Yeats, and Shakespeare, to old silver, landscapes, and rowing, from ancient art to Mapplethorpe, from mythology to God.
     Besides his wife Natica, he is survived by his sister-in-law, Ann S. Satterthwaite of Brattleboro, Vt.; nephews Mahonri Young of Long Island, N.Y., and Walter W. Law and his wife Linda of Auburn, nieces Anne Montgomery of Brattleboro, and Sandra Scheuer of Shokan, N.Y.; adopted son Vincent Jack of Grandview, Mo.; and godson Ned Merrick of Portland. He is predeceased by a brother, Thomas Wilkinson Satterthwaite Jr. and three sisters, Lucile C. Dean, Rhoda Young, and Julia L. Law.
     A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 16, at St. Paul's Church in Brunswick.