John Adger Seel

With the grace and dignity that characterized his life, John Adger Seel died on October 4th, 2023. Born on August 18, 1929 to Louis Seel and Katherine Burnett Seel, he spent a happy childhood in the small town of Belton, South Carolina. After attending Woodberry Forest School in Virginia, John entered Yale, graduating in 1951 with a degree in history and economics. He enrolled in Columbia Business School, but the Korean War intervened and he served for the next two years on an Army counterintelligence barge in the port of Busan.

Returning to the U.S., John began a career at Burlington Industries in New York City. He met Jane McIntosh at a summer party in Westhampton, where he spotted her sitting on the floor reading; she had pulled The Red Cross Girls in Flanders from a shelf because she had served in the Red Cross in Europe after college. He sat down beside her and they began a remarkably steadfast, loving partnership, enjoying their shared interests in history, travel, and the arts.

After John and Jane’s marriage in 1958 and the birth of their son in 1960, the family moved to Old Greenwich, Connecticut, where their daughter was born. John continued to commute to New York on MetroNorth; he later estimated that he had made that hour-long journey 14,000 times.

After retirement in 1989, he began volunteering at the Greenwich Historical Society, which led to fifteen years of service as a trustee, the final three as board chair. Other activities included working on the expansion of the Perrot Library in Old Greenwich, and cultural events and world travel with Jane. An avid reader and lifelong learner, he was particularly interested in British, Revolutionary War, and Civil War history; archaeology; and wildlife conservation.

In 2010, John and Jane moved to Williamsburg Landing, a retirement community in Williamsburg, Virginia, where their active life included coordinating volunteers to read with students at a local elementary school, attending continuing education classes at William & Mary, and going to symphony and opera performances. Meanwhile, John served the Landing community by representing residents’ interests on a number of committees.

Jane was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2014; during the final five years of her life, when she required full-time nursing care, John was constantly at her side, feeding her lunch and dinner every day, taking her outside to enjoy the flowers and birds whenever the weather permitted, telling her she was beautiful, and reading to her every night. In her honor he supported the creation of an Adult Day program at Williamsburg Landing and was a leader of the Landing’s annual fundraising drive for the Alzheimer’s Association.

Over the past few years John conducted detailed research about a wooded site in Williamsburg that is believed to hold the graves of more than 120 French soldiers who died in local hospitals after the siege at Yorktown, helping arrange drone and ground-penetrating radar scans of the property. This year, he initiated the conversion of an overgrown plot of land at the Landing into a pollinator meadow full of wildflowers, butterflies, and hummingbirds. The week before his death he was delighted to see three paw paw trees that he had been nurturing all summer planted in a corner of the meadow, where they will provide habitat for zebra swallowtail butterflies.

John was a devoted husband, a wonderful father, and a loyal friend, and took great pleasure in supporting and encouraging others. We will miss his warmth, integrity, kindness, and good advice.

John was preceded in death by his beloved wife Jane. He is survived by his children John Seel (Lingru) of New Canaan, Connecticut and Anne Furse (Austen) of Houston, Texas, and by his grandchildren Emma and Andrew Seel and Katherine, Claire, and Austen Furse, all of whom will miss him profoundly.

The family would like to acknowledge the staff of Williamsburg Landing for their dedicated and compassionate care and to thank his friends at the Landing for their affection and support.

A celebration of John’s life will be conducted at Williamsburg Landing on December 2, at 11am with a slideshow beginning at 10:30am, and a reception following. His family welcomes donations in his memory to the Alzheimer’s Association or to the Nature Conservancy of Virginia.