James Garfield DeMarco ’59

James Garfield DeMarco ’59 died on May 13. He entered Dartmouth from Hammonton (New Jersey) High School, majored in history, and was a member of Phi Beta Kappa. Following graduation he studied for a year in Italy on a Fulbright grant and then earned a law degree from Yale Law School in 1964. Although Gar intended to pursue a career in either law or politics, his father was killed in an automobile crash shortly after Gar’s graduation from law school, and he became involved in managing his family’s cranberry business. During the course of the next 40 years, Gar greatly expanded that business and became one of the leading cranberry growers in the country. The family cranberry farms were sold to the New Jersey Conservation Foundation in 2004. For many years Gar was an extremely influential Republican operative in the southern New Jersey area. He retired from the political arena in 1990 but remained an active political observer, eventually moving from right of center to left of center and leaving the Republican Party, which he said “had no place for a man like me.” As this shift occurred, Gar publicly announced that he was gay. In 2015 he married his partner, Billy Wilson. Beyond his public life, Gar was an avid researcher of his genealogy and a collector of antiquities and art. He leaves Billy and numerous nieces and nephews. He was predeceased by his siblings, Mark Anthony and Anna Lynne.