Page Prentiss Stephens Summered in East Chop

Page Prentiss Stephens of Lake Wylie, S.C., and East Chop died Feb. 8 at the Piedmont Medical Center in Rock Hill, S.C. He was 85.

He was born April 23, 1919, in Danville, Ill., the last of five children of R. Allan and Helen Bennett Stephens. When he was two they moved to Springfield, Ill., where he grew up and where members of his family remain to this day.

He was an outstanding athlete in his youth. He was a member of the first Springfield High School basketball team to win the Illinois state championship in 1937, and played tennis and golf throughout his life. He was an Eagle Scout.

He attended Bowdoin College, in Brunswick, Me., following the lead of his maternal grandfather, Charles Bennett. While at Bowdoin he learned to fly, completing two certified pilot training courses and becoming adept at float plane landings and aerial acrobatics. He also had the foresight to learn celestial navigation. These proved advantageous when he enlisted in the pilot training program of the United States Navy on Sept. 21, 1941, three months before Pearl Harbor.

Stationed aboard the U.S.S. Ranger and the U.S.S. Essex, he flew Grumman Avenger torpedo/bombers in both the Atlantic and Pacific Theatres, seeing action from Scapa Flow to Iwo Jima. He was awarded the Air Medal and the Distinguished Flying Cross. Characteristically, he did not care much about his medals. "All I wanted to be," he would say, "was a live veteran." He retired from the Navy with the rank of commander.

He married Nancy Hegeman of Providence, R.I., on Sept. 29, 1945, and went to work for Procter & Gamble Manufacturing Company from which he retired in 1979. They and their children lived in Westfield, N.J., and the Vineyard, where Nancy's family has vacationed since the 1870s.

After he retired, he and Nancy moved to Lake Wylie, where he tutored illiterate adults and served as an emergency medical technician with the River Hills emergency squad.

He was a member of the East Chop Tennis Club, the East Chop Beach Club, the Edgartown Golf Club, where he was club champion in 1981, the River Hills Country Club, the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States Martha's Vineyard Post 9261, and was a trustee of Union Chapel in Oak Bluffs.

He leaves his wife of 59 years and three sons, Page, John and David; two granddaughters; and three grandsons.

A memorial service will be held on the Vineyard next summer. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to Union Chapel, P.O. Box 1164, Oak Bluffs, MA 02557.