John Whiting Anderson

John Whiting Anderson died peacefully on July 11, 2022 at CERTUS Senior Living in Orlando due to complications resulting from dementia and squamous cell carcinoma. He was born in New York City on July 27, 1934, and grew up in Highland Park and Seaside Park, New Jersey. From 1949-1952, John attended The Lawrenceville School, where he was president of the Glee Club and played defense on the varsity football team. Summers in Seaside Park were spent productively before attending college; John unloaded baggage off train cars, sold ice cream, and for three summers lifeguarded at the Second Avenue beach.

John graduated with honors in Economics from Amherst College in 1956, where he was a member of the DKE fraternity. After college, he went into the Navy, became an officer in the Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) unit, and was stationed in Hawaii for three years. John never saw active combat during those years, and spent most of his time training underwater while also enjoying the incidental SCUBA diving.

After the Navy, John attended the University of Pennsylvania, where he earned his PhD in Economics in 1961. He was hired to teach in the Economics Department at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, PA that fall, and remained there until his retirement in 1998. His two favorite classes to teach were Principles of Economics and Approaches to Labor Economics. While on sabbatical in 1968-69, John taught in New York City, and for many summers, he taught a summer school class at Fairfield University. John co-authored the book Lewisburg, and was the sole author of Transitions, a study of the Depin Scholar Program at Bucknell University. John served as Chair of Bucknell’s Economics Department and also spent quite a few semesters off campus, teaching economics for two semesters each in Kyoto, Barbados, as well as the Semester at Sea program, and one semester in London.

John married Diane Louise Strong in 1961. They had two daughters, Sarah Louise and Barbara Beverly, and lived in Lewisburg. Diane passed away in 1996, and John married Mary A. Hill at St. Elizabeth’s Church in Ortley Beach, NJ in 1997. They moved to Asheville, NC in 2006, and enjoyed spending several winters on Cudjoe Key, Florida. Mary passed away in April of 2022.

In addition to SCUBA diving and traveling, John’s passions were sailing, swimming, gardening, attending Broadway shows, singing in various groups, cooking, and reading. He inherited his love of gardening from his grandmother and father, cultivating an impressive Japanese garden in Lewisburg. He spent most of his free time in the summers sailing on his boat WindShadow, on Barnegat Bay and for longer stretches into New England waters. He sang in the Susquehanna Valley Chorale, the St. Andrew’s Church Choir in Lewisburg, and in the musical theater group at Venture Out on Cudjoe Key.

In his later years, while living in an assisted living community in Asheville, John really looked forward to the ten days he would spend each summer with his daughters in a house they rented on Barnegat Bay in Seaside Park. John would set crab traps off the back bulkhead, and would spend his days cooking and cleaning the crabs that were caught, sunning himself, and watching the sailboats gently passing by on the horizon. Admiring sunsets on the bay during dinner time always brought a smile.

In addition to Sarah and Barbara, John is survived by his sister Sarah (Sally) Brown, his grandson Thomas Richards, and sons-in-law Clive Richards and Kevin McCormick.

One of John’s favorite expressions was “Happy, Happy, Happy,” and he frequently commented that he was extremely thankful for being blessed with such a full and wonderful life.