Winthrop Cannon Giles ’58

Winthrop Cannon Giles ’58, a longtime resident of Belmont, Massachusetts, died on August 12 in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. “Buzz” was a remarkable man. At 15, while enrolled at the Browne and Nichols School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he contracted polio and spent a year at Children’s Hospital, including several months in an iron lung. For the rest of his life he used braces and crutches to get around. Undaunted, on returning to school he was elected class president his final three years and managed the basketball and football teams. At Dartmouth he was secretary of Phi Gamma Delta and served on the Interdormitory Council judiciary committee. Midway through earning his M.B.A. at Tuck School he married Natalie Foster, who had just graduated from the Mary Hitchcock Nursing School. Buzz worked 33 years at John Hancock Financial Services in sales and marketing positions. He was on the team that launched John Hancock’s mutual fund subsidiary and retired as senior vice president of marketing. He was charter president of the Medway, Massachusetts, Jaycees, trustee of the Belmont Savings Bank and chaired the trustees board of the Southport (Maine) Methodist Church. Dan Wilkes ’58 reports that Buzz and Natalie summered many years in Boothbay Harbor, where they moved on his retirement. After sampling Arizona they settled in Hilton Head, South Carolina, for the winters and continued to spend summers at Boothbay Harbor playing golf and bridge. Besides their three children—Preston, Diane and Lynn—Buzz is survived by seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. “Great life!” he wrote in his 50th reflections.