“What’s a six letter palindrome that scores 32 in Scrabble (when going first and when you can use proper nouns from the Bible)? Answer: Hannah.
Hannah Putnam Fox died surrounded by her family on December 30, 2016 at Collington, the retirement community in Mitchellville, MD where she had lived for eleven years. She was 96 years old. She moved to Collington in 2005, after living four years at Piper Shores, a sister community to Collington located south of Portland, Maine. From 1964 to 2001, Hannah lived in Princeton where her husband, Frederic, was first Recording Secretary and then Keeper of Princetoniana at the University. As a pastor’s wife she lived in New York, Ohio, Massachusetts and Maryland (which included five memorable years when Frederic worked in the White House as a Special Assistant to President Eisenhower).
Hannah was active in many groups and organizations over the thirty-seven years she lived in Princeton. These ranged from “Youth Employment Services,” to the American Field Service, to the Friends of the Public Library, to the Smith Club, to the Princeton Child Development Institute, to the Education Center in Blairstown, to the Chapel Advisory Committee. From 1971 to 1983 she was an elected member of the Princeton Regional School Board, serving twice at its President. When she announced her decision not to run for a fifth term the newspaperquoted her saying, “in her deceptively soft southern way, ‘If I ran again, I’d have to buy a new filing cabinet’.” She was especially known for her tireless work as the Board’s negotiator with the teacher and staff unions.
For ten years (minus 1969 and 1974), Hannah hosted the reunions of her husband’s Class of 1939 in her back yard. A custom-made, orange and black tent filled up the whole area behind the house at 28 Vandeventer along Spring Street. This was just the beginning of her volunteer service to the University. Together with a fellow widow, Hannah initiated the very successful annual fundraising appeal to Princeton University alumni widows (“The Class Associates program”). At reunions in 1996, Hannah was honored by receiving the Alumni Council Award for Service to Princeton. A paragraph from the citation sums up her independent contributions to the University:
“The requests haven’t let up. Hannah, could you serve lemonade and cookies for the Friends of the Princeton Chapel? Could you interview students applying for scholarships through the ’39 Foundation? Could you join Triangle Club’s National Committee for its Second Century Campaign? Yes. Yes. Yes.”
Hannah was born on May 16, 1920 in Ashland, Kentucky. She was the first child of her namesake mother, Hannah Russell Putnam and her father, Donald Hardie Putnam. She attended public schools in Ashland, graduating from high school in 1938. She then went to Smith College, as her mother had. Graduating in the war year of 1942, she soon went to work as a civilian for the U.S. Army Signal Corps in Nashville, Tennessee. And there, in November 1943, shortly before she was promoted to the Army’s code-breaking operations located in Arlington Hall, suburban Washington, she met Lt. Frederic Fox. It was love at first sight.
And then it was love separated by her fiancé’s service in the European “theatre” where he literally acted a part in the Army’s only deception unit: the 23rd Special Headquarters Troops. Their love letters during their separation were hampered by the fact that Fred’s activities with “The Ghost Army” were top secret. (In spite of this, twenty-five years later, Fred gathered together this correspondence that was so dear to him and tried to get it published as a war-time memoir entitled “Dear Hannah/Dear Fred.”)
The result of the marriage of Hannah and Frederic have been published, as it were. They are their five children: the late Josephine Morgan, Elizabeth (the late Stanley Meisler), Frederick (Elisa Parra), Donald (Elizabeth Billington), and Amy (Jim Kubacki). These were followed by 13 grandchildren: Hanna (who died in infancy), Gabriel, Jenaro, Michelle, Elissa, Jeffrey, Gene Paul, Kelvin, Sheida, Susannah, Elizabeth, Robert and Sarah. And they have been joined, at last count, by ten great-grandchildren.
The divinity that shaped Hannah and Fred’s ends was early felt in the fact that they both came from families of five children. Hannah was predeceased by her brothers Donald and Louis Putnam, and by her sister Harriet Henry. She is survived by her sister and brother-in-law Betty and Walter Huebner, her sisters-in-law, Karlene Putnam and Sally Putnam and her brother-in-law, Merton Henry. She was predeceased by her brothers- and sisters-in-law, Kel and Patty Fox, Wynfred and Tom Greacen, Morley Fox, and Quentin Fox. She is survived by her sister-in-law Nancy Fox Elder. Hannah is further survived by many nieces and nephews and their children.
She was a fair and loving person. She had only three rules for her children: “Don’t lie; always tell us where you are; and you can be sick at home for only one day.” Among her final words, two days before she died, were, “I have no complaints.” Among the many words that could be added here are, “Thank you, Hannah.”
And one final word of thanks: to Hannah’s devoted care-giver at Collington: Doris Cooper.
Memorials can be given to the Princeton Education Foundation (pefnj.org) or to any cause or institution dear to Hannah or to the giver.
A memorial service will be held in Princeton at a later date.
