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Alan Hackney Milford '51

Mar. 5, 1929-Feb. 18, 2006

Alan Hackney Milford ’51, for 40 years an industrial research chemist and production engineer with the Olin Corp., was born on March 5, 1929, in Johnstown, NY. A son of Robert M., a mechanical engineer, and Marguerite Hackney Milford, he attended Johnstown High School and arrived at Hamilton in the spring of 1946 at the age of 16, following a semester’s preparation at Worcester Academy in Massachusetts. However, amidst returning veterans of World War II who already easily conversed with Professor Otto Liedke in German,  he quickly felt very young and lost. That fall, it helped prompt him to enlist in the U.S. Army. After a year and a half of experience with the occupation forces in Japan, he returned to College Hill.

Al Milford joined the newly established local fraternity Alpha Chi, and by 1950, as its president, he was much involved in its transition into a chapter of the national fraternity Delta Phi. Working closely with Dean Winton Tolles, whom he came to admire greatly, he played a key role in arduous struggles to bring the new fraternity to campus, becoming its founding president. In the meantime, he pursued premedical studies but, at the suggestion of Dean Tolles, took philosophy courses as well, for which he would remain ever grateful.

Al Milford left the Hill with his diploma in 1951 and settled in New Haven, CT, where he began his long employment with the Olin Corp., then Winchester Arms and later Olin Mathieson Chemical Corp. Having decided that medicine was not for him, he instead utilized his major in chemistry to good effect in the industrial field. Engaged for many years in research on explosives, propellants, and their application to ballistic systems, he later moved into water sanitation, directing research and development for Olin’s swimming pool chemical products. The holder of several patents in his own name, he retired in 1991.

In 1957, Al Milford and his wife, the former Dorothy M. Ellis, who were married on August 21, 1954, in Pittsfield, MA, took up residence in Hamden, CT. There he continued devotedly to play tennis and golf as well as demonstrate his talent for bread making. He also enjoyed playing the piano, listening to Dixieland and jazz, doting on his pets, and spending time at the family camp in the northern Adirondacks.

Alan W. Milford, a faithful alumnus and onetime regional chairman of the Alumni Fund, and, in the words of a Hamilton friend, “a remarkably versatile, accomplished, and worthwhile human being,” was still residing in Hamden when he died unexpectedly on February 18, 2006. In addition to his wife of 51 years, he is survived by three sons, Stephen A. ’77, Christopher A., and William F. Milford; a daughter, Pamela A. Milford; and eight grandchildren and a brother. They all remember him for “his ready smile, helping hand, open arms and boundless affection for his friends, and his enduring and unwavering love for his wife and children.”

 

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