Alumni Necrology
William Kent Van Allen ’35
William Kent Van Allen ’35, a founding partner of one of the Southeast’s largest and most prestigious law firms and a Charlotte, NC, community leader, was born on July 30, 1914, in Albion, NY, west of Rochester. The son of Everett K. Van Allen, Class of 1902, a lawyer and trustee of the College (1931-35), and the former Georgia Roberts, he grew up in Rochester, where he became an Eagle Scout and was graduated in 1931 from Monroe High School. Bill Van Allen entered Hamilton that fall, joined his father’s fraternity, Chi Psi, and later served as president of the Chi Psi lodge. He also went out for soccer, lettering in the sport. President of student government in high school, he in addition took an active role in governance on the Hill, serving as secretary of the College Council. Elected to membership in Quadrangle, DT, and Was Los as well as Pentagon, he also excelled academically, earning a Phi Beta Kappa key.
Bill Van Allen enrolled at Harvard Law School following his graduation in 1935. Three years later, with his LL.B. degree in hand, he became associated with the Hanson, Lovett & Dale law firm in Washington, DC. He left the firm in 1941, before U.S. entry into World War II, when called to active duty with the Navy. Commissioned as an ensign, he served on a series of small vessels on the lookout for German submarines until 1943, when he was assigned as executive officer to the destroyer escort U.S.S. Eldridge. The ship provided escort to convoys crossing the Atlantic in support of the Allied invasion of North Africa. Promoted to commanding officer of the Eldridge, he captained the ship for two years until the end of the war, by which time it had been transferred to the Pacific theatre. He was in Okinawa preparing his ship for the invasion of Japan’s home islands when the Japanese surrendered.
In 1944, while the Eldridge was anchored for a 10-day stop in New York Harbor, a ship’s party was held on the Starlight Roof of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. There, Lt. Cdr. Van Allen met and danced with one of the guests, Sally K. Schall. Before the?Eldridge left port, they were engaged, with the wedding scheduled for whenever the ship?might be in port again. They were married in Sally’s hometown of Charlestown, SC, on November 11, 1944.
Discharged from the Navy at the end of 1945, Bill Van Allen returned to his law firm in Washington. He remained with Hanson, Lovett & Dale until 1950, when he moved to Charlotte to participate in establishing a new firm, Lassiter, Moore & Van Allen. In the ensuing years, as Charlotte began to burgeon as a major business and financial center, the firm also grew. Beginning with three lawyers, the firm, Moore & Van Allen after 1963, had scores of lawyers in four offices by the time Bill Van Allen became of counsel in 1988.
In addition to pursuing his highly successful corporate law practice, Bill Van Allen participated actively in community affairs. He chaired the board of managers of the Charlotte Country Day School and the Mecklenburg County Board of Public Welfare, and served as vice-chairman of the board of visitors of the Charlotte Rehabilitation Center. In addition, he was a trustee of the Mint Museum of Art, a member of the board of visitors of Johnson C. Smith University, and a director of the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, Foundation as well as the Mercy Hospital Foundation. A past president of?the Charlotte Country Club, he was also a vestryman of Christ Episcopal Church.
William K. Van Allen, an unfailingly faithful and generously supportive alumnus, and onetime president of the Washington, DC, Alumni Association, died in Charlotte on February 3, 2011, at the age of 96. Active until the end, he had continued to visit his law office almost daily, the last time just weeks before his death. In addition to his wife of 66 years, he is survived by three sons, William K., Jr., George H. ’72, and Peter C. Van Allen, and eight grand children, including Sally ’08 and William Perrin Van Allen ’10.
Richmond Barbour Millham ’36
Richmond Barbour Millham ’36, a computer programmer who pioneered in introducing computer technology to the Eastman Kodak Co., was a lifelong resident of Rochester, NY, where he was born on November 8, 1914. The son of Jesse B. ’01, a furniture manufacturer and later an insurance agent, and Eloise Heffron Millham, he was a nephew of Charles R. Millham 1899 and Robert K. Heffron ’24. “Dick” Millham came to the Hill in 1932 from John Marshall High School in Rochester and joined his father’s fraternity, Delta Kappa Epsilon. A versatile athlete despite his small stature, he played three varsity sports, baseball, basketball, and soccer, and captained the baseball team in his senior year. Called by the The Hamiltonian “the biggest small man on campus,” he was popular with his classmates and achieved election to all four class honorary societies, Quadrangle, DT, Was Los, and Pentagon. He received his B.S. degree in 1936 with honors in Italian and Spanish.
Dick Millham returned to his hometown of Rochester, where he became a bank teller at the Union Trust Co. Drafted into the U.S. Army months before Pearl Harbor in 1941, he was assigned to the Signal Corps and trained as a radio operator. He served with the 8th Infantry Division in the European theatre during World War II, and was with the British 2nd Army when it made contact with allied Russian forces along the Elbe in 1945. Awarded the Bronze Star, he was discharged as a technical sergeant later that year.
Back in Rochester, Dick Millham went to work in cost accounting for Eastman Kodak and became a head bookkeeper. In 1955, when the company decided to explore data processing, he was part of the original small group that introduced and applied its fundamentals to the company’s operations. As a senior systems analyst and project supervisor, he remained with Eastman Kodak for 35 years until his retirement in 1980.
Ardently devoted to the game of golf, in which he excelled, Dick Millham continued to play the game into his early 90s. During winters, he and his wife, the former Marian L. Koop, whom he had wed on March 11, 1949, in Rochester, enjoyed cross-country skiing. Many years after leaving the Army, Dick also rekindled his interest in radio and obtained a ham operator’s license. In addition, he was fond of birding with his family.
Richmond B. Millham, a loyal alumnus, died on March 25, 2011, at the age of 96. In addition to his wife of 62 years, he is survived by two sons, Kevin B. ’72 and Kent A. Millham, and a?grandson.
Kendall Earl Hay ’37
Kendall Earl Hay ’37, a longtime real estate broker and appraiser in his native Oneonta, NY, was born there on October 19, 1915. A son of J. Earl, also a real estate agent, and Alma Jane Miner Hay, a teacher, he entered Hamilton in 1933 from Oneonta High School. Cited by The Hamiltonian as “southern New York’s best-dressed man” and one who “could win a bridge game with one honor,” he majored in chemistry and mathematics and did practice teaching at Utica Country Day School during his senior year.
Upon receiving his B.S. degree in 1937, “Ken” Hay returned to the Day School to teach chemistry and math. However, after a year, he went home to Oneonta and joined his father in the business he had started in 1921, the J. Earl Hay Real Estate Agency. Drafted into the U.S. Army in February 1942, not long after Pearl Harbor, Ken Hay obtained a transfer to the Army Air Corps and was commissioned as an officer. Assigned as assistant supervisor of the radio school at Scott Field in Illinois, he was transferred overseas in 1945 to serve as the communications officer of a C-47 squadron of the 1st Air Command Group stationed in the China-Burma-India theater. Although discharged from active duty as a captain in 1946, after World War II’s end, he?remained in the Air Force Reserve until his retirement in 1970 as a lieutenant colonel.
On December 24, 1946, soon after his release from active duty, Ken Hay was married in Oneonta to Charlotte E. Phillips. By that time he had returned to the real estate business as a self-employed licensed broker. In subsequent years he did appraisal work for land acquisition by state agencies and for properties and lands required for the expansion of the State University of New York College at Oneonta as well as Fox Hospital, and for new public school and shopping center sites. Despite his long affliction with poor eyesight, he continued as a broker and appraiser until his retirement in 1981.
Within the Oneonta community, Ken Hay was highly active as a Rotarian. He served the local Rotary chapter as treasurer for 42 years and was recognized for his contributions to the Rotary by being named a Paul Harris Fellow. An ever faithful and supportive alumnus, he also assisted the College with its fund-raising efforts.
Kendall E. Hay died at his home in Oneonta on February 26, 2011, at the age of 95, just a week after the death of his South Dorm roommate for three years, Mahlon Stilwell (see below). Ken Hay is survived by his wife of 64 years, as well as nieces and nephews.
Mahlon Franklin Stilwell ’37
Mahlon Franklin Stilwell ’37, who taught mathematics to cadets at the U.S. Naval Academy for 30 years, was born on March 6, 1917, in Scranton, PA. Adopted by William H., a funeral director, and Nettie Belden Stilwell when he was 15 months old, he grew up in rural Hartwick, NY, north of Oneonta, and was graduated in 1933 from Hartwick High School. He arrived on College Hill that fall at the age of 16. With a bent toward mathematics and no particular interest in athletics, he?focused on his studies and earned his B.S. degree with honors in math in 1937.
After acquiring an M.A. in math from Syracuse University a year later, Mahlon Stilwell began his teaching career at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY, as an instructor. There he met Zelma D. Chapman, and they were married at Hedges Lake, near Cambridge, NY, on August 23, 1939. Promoted to assistant professor at R.P.I. in 1947, he left its faculty the following year when recruited by the Naval Academy.
By 1960, Mahlon Stilwell had become interested in computer programming, finding the computer useful in his work as assistant to the Academy’s scheduling officer. He developed a system to schedule exams for more than 4,000 students, which?long remained in use at the Academy in modified form. Besides establishing the Academy’s first academic computer system, he also gained a reputation as the best teacher, especially of differential equations, in the Academy’s math department. During the 1960s he also taught math in the John Hopkins University’s evening division.
After his retirement from the Naval Academy as an associate professor in 1977, Mahlon Stilwell did independent corporate consulting work. In his spare time he enjoyed problem solving and word puzzles as well as stamp collecting. Within the Annapolis, MD, community he was a highly active member of Calvary United Methodist Church, serving as its treasurer and financial secretary for many years. An ardent and exceedingly generous supporter of Hamilton, he also aided its fund-raising activities and served as a class correspondent for this magazine.
Mahlon Stilwell habitually kept himself busy with a home improvement project either at his home in Annapolis or at the family cottage on Hedges Lake in upstate New York, where he and Zelma spent their summers. After his retirement they also traveled extensively throughout the United States. Following Zelma’s death after 69 years of marriage in 2008, Mahlon moved to California to reside with his daughter.
Mahlon F. Stilwell died in Kernville, CA, on February 19, 2011, in his 94th year. He is survived by a son, Richard M. Stilwell; his daughter, Aletha Benson; and four grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.
