Stuart VanVranken Willson, Jr. Stuart VanVranken Willson, Jr., who was born on April 25, 1931 and was a long-time resident of Princeton, NJ, died peacefully at home on March 2, 2016, of natural causes. He was 84 years old. Stuart was the beloved husband of Amelia Murchio Willson, to whom he was married for more than 25 years. He was born in La Crosse, Minnesota, the youngest child of the late Marie Carlson and Stuart Willson, Sr., who was the CEO of the Northern States Power Company, Minnesota’s largest electric utility. The Willson family moved to Montevideo and then Faribault, Minnesota, where Stuart became the Minnesota State high School golf champion, won Fuller Brush Company sales awards while still a teenager, and graduated as high school class valedictorian. He worked as a ditch digger during school summer breaks, a job he said taught him the importance of a good education, which he pursued at Yale. During his freshman year there, the Willsons relocated to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and Stuart spent his summers home working on the Great Lakes ore carriers, ferrying coal across Lake Michigan. After graduating with an engineering degree from Yale and an MBA from the Harvard Business School, Stuart became a direct commission officer in the U.S. Army. Envisioning a posting abroad for himself, he was instead posted to Fort Dix, New Jersey. His disappointment with his posting was short lived. As a young lieutenant he was responsible for the payroll of the entire base, and developed lifelong friendships with other finance officers. Those years of Army service gave him responsibilities and opportunities almost unknown to someone in his early 20s. He thrived and looked back on those years as some of the most formative of his professional life. After being honorably discharged from the Army, Stuart began his business career as an engineer but eventually recognized his professional calling was in sales. He joined Princeton’s CUH2A, and with a small group of partners, built it into what became New Jersey’s second largest science and technology architecture and engineering firm, at the time specializing in architecture for pharmaceutical research and manufacturing. After retiring from CUH2A, Stuart became a sales executive for the Philadelphia firm of Kling Stubbins, from which he retired in 2013. An avid golfer, he was a member of Springdale for many years and eventually joined Bedens Brook. He won a number of club championships during those years. In 1990 when he married his second wife Amelia, a technology strategist from Manhattan, he taught her to golf, and they often played 9 holes together after work. She and a friend witnessed his hole in one on the 9th at Springdale. Stuart was also a member of the Nassau Gun Club for many years and for several years was also a member of the Log Cabin Gun Club. He hunted in Botswana with Harry Selby, one of the great hunters of his day. He is survived by Amelia, his daughter Wylie from his first marriage to Rosalie Richards of Princeton, his sister Joan Carver of Kalamazoo, and five nieces and nephews and their children from the Willson family. He is survived by five sisters-in-law and five brothers-in-law and their children from the Murchio family. Stuart was predeceased by his son, Stuart Willson III, and by his sister Sally LaPierre of Wichita. A Memorial Service will be held Saturday March 19th 11:00 a.m. at the Trinity Episcopal Church, 33 Mercer Street, Princeton. The interment will be private. Since flowers are not appropriate during the Lenten season, anyone who would wish to have sent flowers might like to make a contribution to Trinity Episcopal Church, 33 Mercer Street, Princeton, NJ 08540. Arrangements are by the Wilson-Apple Funeral Home, 2560 Pennington Road, Pennington. Condolences are welcome at www.wilsonapple.com.
