John Dwight Peterson III

John D. “Pete” Peterson, III, 62 died May 3, 2020 at Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis of complications following a heart attack. He was born in Indianapolis November 13, 1957, the second child of John D. Peterson Jr. and Nancy Browning Peterson of Zionsville. The parents survive. He was the husband of Julie Wilkinson Peterson. She survives, along with their children, John, Cheboygan, Mich., and Alex, Indianapolis. Pete was a veteran of the United States Coast Guard and during his 4-year hitch was involved in several rescues at sea while stationed in Italy and in the Great Lakes during the 1980s. Later he returned to Indianapolis and went to work as a stockbroker for City Securities Corp., a securities firm founded by Pete’s grandfather. During the 1990s he wrote a column on investing for the Indianapolis Business Journal. He attended Indiana and Western Kentucky universities and like his father and his father’s father was a member of Sigma Chi fraternity. He was a member of Tabernacle Presbyterian Church and Woodstock Club. He loved boats and was highly capable on the water. He spent part of every summer at this family’s house on tiny Heron Island off the coast of Maine. He won numerous sailing races at the Indianapolis Sailing Club in the 1990s and a few at Burt Lake in Northern Michigan. Pete collected pond yachts, which are miniature sailboats roughly two or three feet long that are sailed, among other places, in a pond in New York’s Central Park. He joined the Central Park Model Yacht Club (founded: 1916). Included in the $100 fee was a “CPMYC” baseball hat. Pete got a kick out of wearing it, he got a kick out of the intensity of hard-core hobbyists. A small, wooded 19th century cemetery abutted Pete’s backyard, and he took it upon himself to look after it, removing fallen limbs etc. On Memorial Day he’d plant an American flag at the grave of the cemetery’s war veteran. Pete had an appreciation for history. He recently marveled to a friend how odd it was – and how nice it was – that after the Civil War Confederate general Joe Johnston became friends with his Union nemesis William Tecumseh Sherman – and was even a pallbearer at Sherman’s funeral! Friendship was the thing Pete was best at, and not casual “social” friendship. Pete maintained deep, meaningful relations with an uncommonly large number of people, people with widely divergent interests and world views. He had nicknames for all of them: Loonis, Baya, Buddha, Dan the Man, Patches, Evil, Gremmie, Kev, Jeffie, Brodine, Greeley, K Man, Pat and Weo, to name 14. In addition to his wife and children and parents, Pete is survived by his sisters, Debbie Midkiff (Mark) of Westfield, IN and Penny Phillips (Randy) of Louisville, KY, brother-in-law Jeff Wilkinson (Debbie), of Somerset, KY, and 7 nieces and nephews. Pete will be laid to rest in a private ceremony at Crown Hill Cemetery. Memorial contributions may be sent to Heron Island Village Improvement Society, P.O. Box 2273, 15 Cottage Road, South Portland, ME 04116 or Friends of Holliday Park, 6363 Spring Mill Road, Indianapolis, IN 46260. Due to the coronavirus, a celebration of Pete’s life will be scheduled at a later date.