While it sounds like a cliché, contact with Chuck at Whitman brightened my Pyle and Whitman days. Chuck was witty, brilliant, and intellectually curious without any arrogance. Chuck, I am sure that you and Simeon K are now having great discussions again.
To all who have known and cared about Chuck I echo Martha's comment. He was always a person to be inspired by. We first met in classes together in junior high. I remember being in a Pyle play with him "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" (which few will now remember) and going to a competition for poetry reading, which the English department promoted and provided transportation for. He read wonderfully.
Chuck was the Best storyteller. Evidently he was so good that he taught other attorneys the art of storytelling. I only kept track of him during Whitman reunions, but we had been close for a short time while in early college days. As an attorney, he clerked for the Supreme Court and later argued and won cases there. Not that he boasted about it, his resume told the story while he was at Steptoe & Johnson.
He loved his family fiercely through difficult challenges. What a great guy. We could all be better people by following his example.
Chuck was the kind of person anyone should aspire to be.
To Linda and the family: his influence has been deeply felt and he will be missed.
Chuck Cole's son Alan was on "It's Academic" several times with the team from St. Albans, so I also remember Chuck as a proud and nervous parent in Studio A at NBC4.
Chuck was one of the top students in our Whitman class but very modest and kind. He and Simeon Kriesberg were star debate partners their senior year. Chuck and I played tennis together in high school, and I remember that we played on math/calculus teacher Mr. Hammet’s “all-star tennis team” (i.e., something Mr. Hammet created for those of us who liked to play but were not nearly good enough for the real team). Chuck went to Yale and of course excelled, being elected to Phi Beta Kappa junior year and graduating summa cum laude. I remember when Chuck visited me in my dorm at MIT (Baker House) in Cambridge, MA during freshman year, as Chuck had decided to write an essay for a course on the Finnish architect, Alvar Aalto, who designed Baker House, and as always Chuck did intensive research. I remember that he sent me a copy of his essay, which was brilliant. He met his future wife, Linda, at Yale, and they both went to Harvard Law School, where Chuck was on law review. After graduating, Chuck clerked for Judge Harold Leventhal of the US Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia Circuit and then for Justice Byron White on the US Supreme Court, prior to taking a job at Steptoe and Johnson, where he spent the rest of his career. An attorney friend of mine described working with Chuck as one of the highlights of his professional career because Chuck was always so positive and enthusiastic, as well as brilliant and creative. However, Chuck’s real passion was with family. He and Linda were awesome parents for their oldest daughter, Elizabeth, who had special medical and other needs as well as daughter Laura and son Alan, and Chuck was also close to his brother Robert. He is survived by all of them as well as by his grandchildren. I remember at Alan’s wedding that Chuck gave a brilliant, warm, loving, and humorous talk about his son and new daughter-in-law. However, over the ensuing years, his health declined, and he eventually passed away from Parkinson’s disease. I’m sure that those who got to know Chuck well were wowed—by his warmth, humor, positive outlook, and remarkably broad intellect. We have lost another very special member of our class. May his memory be for a blessing.
The first oral presentation assigned by Mr. Boyer to our 9th grade English class at Pyle was to interview a classmate and then "introduce" him to the rest of the class. I was assigned to interview Chuck. I asked him a number of questions and then I asked if he had any hobbies. Chuck said he had only one: homework. What a nerdy answer! But Chuck was the polar opposite of nerdy. Even in 9th grade, he was gracious, friendly, socially adept, a good conversationalist, interested in many subjects. And most important, he was a good listener. Far from being nerdy, he was a renaissance man and a star of our class.
We shared lots of experiences at Pyle and Whitman, but my most vivid memory of Chuck is when we protested the war at the "counter-inaugural ball" in 1969 under a big tent by the Washington Monument. He was savvy and conscientious as well as brilliant.
Warren, Debbie, Joel -- Thanks for sharing information about Chuck's career and family. He made the world better.
Martha Kiefer
To the family of Chuck Cole
During high school I so enjoyed the friendship of Chuck. He was an inspiration to me. My condolences to his family. Martha Kiefer
Marian Greenspan
I remember Chuck as a nice and smart guy. Sorry to hear he is gone!
Leland Gamson
While it sounds like a cliché, contact with Chuck at Whitman brightened my Pyle and Whitman days. Chuck was witty, brilliant, and intellectually curious without any arrogance. Chuck, I am sure that you and Simeon K are now having great discussions again.
Deborah A. Snow
To all who have known and cared about Chuck I echo Martha's comment. He was always a person to be inspired by. We first met in classes together in junior high. I remember being in a Pyle play with him "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" (which few will now remember) and going to a competition for poetry reading, which the English department promoted and provided transportation for. He read wonderfully.
Chuck was the Best storyteller. Evidently he was so good that he taught other attorneys the art of storytelling. I only kept track of him during Whitman reunions, but we had been close for a short time while in early college days. As an attorney, he clerked for the Supreme Court and later argued and won cases there. Not that he boasted about it, his resume told the story while he was at Steptoe & Johnson.
He loved his family fiercely through difficult challenges. What a great guy. We could all be better people by following his example.
Chuck was the kind of person anyone should aspire to be.
To Linda and the family: his influence has been deeply felt and he will be missed.
Joel M Kemelhor
Chuck Cole's son Alan was on "It's Academic" several times with the team from St. Albans, so I also remember Chuck as a proud and nervous parent in Studio A at NBC4.
Joel Kemelhor
Warren J. Leonard
Chuck was one of the top students in our Whitman class but very modest and kind. He and Simeon Kriesberg were star debate partners their senior year. Chuck and I played tennis together in high school, and I remember that we played on math/calculus teacher Mr. Hammet’s “all-star tennis team” (i.e., something Mr. Hammet created for those of us who liked to play but were not nearly good enough for the real team). Chuck went to Yale and of course excelled, being elected to Phi Beta Kappa junior year and graduating summa cum laude. I remember when Chuck visited me in my dorm at MIT (Baker House) in Cambridge, MA during freshman year, as Chuck had decided to write an essay for a course on the Finnish architect, Alvar Aalto, who designed Baker House, and as always Chuck did intensive research. I remember that he sent me a copy of his essay, which was brilliant. He met his future wife, Linda, at Yale, and they both went to Harvard Law School, where Chuck was on law review. After graduating, Chuck clerked for Judge Harold Leventhal of the US Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia Circuit and then for Justice Byron White on the US Supreme Court, prior to taking a job at Steptoe and Johnson, where he spent the rest of his career. An attorney friend of mine described working with Chuck as one of the highlights of his professional career because Chuck was always so positive and enthusiastic, as well as brilliant and creative. However, Chuck’s real passion was with family. He and Linda were awesome parents for their oldest daughter, Elizabeth, who had special medical and other needs as well as daughter Laura and son Alan, and Chuck was also close to his brother Robert. He is survived by all of them as well as by his grandchildren. I remember at Alan’s wedding that Chuck gave a brilliant, warm, loving, and humorous talk about his son and new daughter-in-law. However, over the ensuing years, his health declined, and he eventually passed away from Parkinson’s disease. I’m sure that those who got to know Chuck well were wowed—by his warmth, humor, positive outlook, and remarkably broad intellect. We have lost another very special member of our class. May his memory be for a blessing.
Larry Wagman
The first oral presentation assigned by Mr. Boyer to our 9th grade English class at Pyle was to interview a classmate and then "introduce" him to the rest of the class. I was assigned to interview Chuck. I asked him a number of questions and then I asked if he had any hobbies. Chuck said he had only one: homework. What a nerdy answer! But Chuck was the polar opposite of nerdy. Even in 9th grade, he was gracious, friendly, socially adept, a good conversationalist, interested in many subjects. And most important, he was a good listener. Far from being nerdy, he was a renaissance man and a star of our class.
Guy Webster
We shared lots of experiences at Pyle and Whitman, but my most vivid memory of Chuck is when we protested the war at the "counter-inaugural ball" in 1969 under a big tent by the Washington Monument. He was savvy and conscientious as well as brilliant.
Warren, Debbie, Joel -- Thanks for sharing information about Chuck's career and family. He made the world better.