Andrew Loring Rowe Dies at Age of 94, Was Distinguished in Business and in War

Andrew Loring Rowe, longtime Chicago resident and current Edgartown resident, died June 26 at the Martha's Vineyard Hospital at the age of 94. He was surrounded by family at the time of his death. A successful businessman, an accomplished war veteran and a consummate gentleman, husband, father and grandfather, he will be greatly missed by family and friends alike.

Born March 18, 1911 in Evanston, Ill. to parents Edgar Charles Rowe and Katherine Livingston Andrew, Andrew Loring spent his youth primarily in Chicago, and also at his family's farm in West Point, Indiana and on and around Cape Cod. He attended kindergarten at the University School for Girls in Chicago where Jimmy Stewart was among his classmates and then was graduated from Francis Parker School in Chicago and Blair Academy in Blairstown, N.J. before matriculating at Princeton University.

While at Princeton he majored in architecture, winning a Beaux Art Prize for his senior thesis, a design for the Princeton Yacht Club on Lake Carnegie. In addition to his studies, Andrew Loring, known to his friends as Loring or Shanksie, managed the crew that rowed at Henley. He graduated cum laude from Princeton in 1934 but because of the Depression, he never practiced architecture, and instead became a salesman for Elgin Watch of Elgin, Ill. in their Northern New England Territory. He became a vice president of Elgin Watch before going to work for La Salle Steel of Hammond, Ind. Upon entering the steel business, he went back to the MIT Senior Executive Program at the Sloan School of Management in Cambridge, where he was among one of the first graduating classes. He eventually rose to the level of vice president at La Salle Steel before retiring in 1976.

In addition to a successful business career, Loring had a distinguished career in the armed forces. He was a lieutenant in the Navy and served in the South Pacific as a gunnery officer in World War II. He was stationed worldwide and was on the first non-combatant ship into Yokahama after the war ended. When stationed in Sydney in 1943, he received a stack of three months of letters from his wife, Barbara. They were numbered chronologically and when he opened the fifth letter he discovered his first child had been born, a son, Andrew Loring Jr. Included in the missive was a photograph of his wife and firstborn; he kept that photograph in his wallet for the remainder of his life.

Loring was an active member of every community in which he lived. In Chicago he served as president of the Racquet Club and Saddle and Cycle Club and was a member of the University Club. On Martha's Vineyard he served as president of the Martha's Vineyard Preservation Trust and after his tenure still regularly attended all board meetings and activities. He was also on the board of the Martha's Vineyard Hospital. Loring was president of the Edgartown Reading Room and a member of the Edgartown Yacht Club, where he served on the race committee and often had to remain seated on the committee boat because the canopy was too low to accommodate his six foot six inch frame. Loring was an avid athlete and sports enthusiast. He played basketball, tennis, football, golfed and sailed. When a teenager he crewed Q-Boats for Ray Hunt out of Duxbury. Even in his nineties he walked every afternoon and swam every day in the summer. He and his brother, Jamie, saw Jesse Owens set the world record at the Century of Progress track meet in 1933; he frequently attended Blackhawk hockey games, Purdue basketball games, track meets, football games and any event in which Princeton, his children or his grandchildren were competing. In his later life he was always willing to offer fellow spectators, specifically his grandchildren, a complete education on the rules of the game in question, the history of said sport, the records of the teams competing and his prediction of the outcome. He is responsible for inspiring future generations of sports fans with his enthusiasm and wisdom.

At 94 years old, Loring was a valuable repository of history. He was equally comfortable sharing memories of his war experiences as he was telling stories about his youth spent in Chicago. He was known to have ice skated to Francis Parker School up Lake Shore Drive and through Lincoln Park and, when the Drake Hotel in Chicago was under construction, he and a friend snuck to the eighth floor and dropped golf balls to the pavement below to see how far they would bounce: five floors, as the story was told. He was so tall that he could never get lost, even if he wanted to. The day after the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago in 1929, at which he had covertly been a spectator, Loring appeared in the press photos standing a foot above the crowd. His mother, who thought he had been safely in school, was shocked. But his height was an asset, too, as his family often used him as a landmark at busy social events, navigating their way through the crowds using him as a reference. He was a compass, physical, moral and historical, for his family and community.

He was predeceased by his wife of 60 years, Barbara Bastien, his brother James Lincoln, and his sister Jane Rowe Evans. He is survived by his sister, Ruth Rowe Philbrick of Silver Spring, Md.; his children, Andrew Loring Rowe Jr. of Hope, Me. and his wife, Jennifer Gooch Rowe, Thomas Bastien Rowe of Middletown, R.I. and his wife, Elizabeth Burrage Rowe, and Nancy Rowe Burroughs of Peace Dale, R.I. and her husband, Richard Hansford Burroughs; his grandchildren Jason Gooch Hearst, Amory Andrew Rowe, Brewer Bastien Rowe, Thomas Loring Rowe, Nicholas Loring Burroughs and Hannah Grinnell Burroughs.

He will be missed by children, grandchildren, friends, neighbors and those who knew the lanky, upright, white-haired gentleman with the orange and black scarf and the binoculars who routinely walked up North Water street to the Edgartown lighthouse overlook where he would sit on the bench, watch the boats pass and gaze up the harbor toward the Tower Hill cemetery where his beloved companion of almost 60 years was waiting and where a graveside service will be held Thursday, July 28 at 3 p.m. Reception to follow at the Edgartown Reading Room at the foot of Cooke street at 4 p.m. All are welcome to both the service and the reception.

In lieu of flowers the family requests that donations be made to the Martha's Vineyard Preservation Trust, P.O. Box 5277, Edgartown, MA 02539 or to the U.S. Athletic Trust, P.O. Box 224, Briarcliff Manor, N.Y. 10510, a nonprofit organization founded by a Princeton graduate and Olympian to provide funding to college-graduated Olympic hopefuls, and currently managed by Loring Rowe's granddaughter.