Arthur Boyd Ward passed away Sept. 14, 2016. Better known as Jerry, he was our family’s Peter Pan.
Arthur Ward, 84, passed away on Sept. 14.
Born April 9, 1932, He was the great grandson of Robert Boyd Ward, founder in 1849 of the innovative Ward Baking Company. Jerry was a child and young man of privilege who learned the value of hard work, ethics, and commitment to family.
Innately, Jerry was trustworthy and fair, comfortable in his own skin, and a man who woke up every morning happy to begin another day. His joy was to make people smile and laugh, which he accomplished everywhere he went.
Being from the East Coast, specifically Darien, Jerry mastered the art of sarcasm and banter. As a creative advertising manager at Nash Engineering Company in Norwalk, he honed the art of the hook, the pitch, and the punch line, which made him an eloquent wordsmith, a perfect joke teller, and an engrossing storyteller.
After retiring with his wife Pat to Santa Barbara in 2003—“I was born to be retired!”—his haunts became Harry’s in Loreto Plaza, Brophy’s along the Marina, and the Santa Barbara Sailing Center where every Monday and Thursday he rowed the training skull in the harbor.
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— an obituary from McDermott, Crockett & Associates Mortuary
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This continued his life-long love of the water, embodied by the Lightning he and his father Howard Boyd Ward, Jr. built in 1948, all the way to the early 1980s when he bought a 39-foot, two-mast ketch, which he christened “Marauder” and docked at the South Norwalk Boat Club—the only sailing vessel amidst a slew of motor and fishing boats. As a point of pride, he flew the American and French flags.
Jerry attended Phillips Academy Andover, a preparatory high school in Massachusetts. For his graduating class’s 50th Reunion Yearbook, he wrote, “Andover has been my bedrock of confidence. Nothing could defeat me after I survived that experience. No other challenge would be so great.”
Jerry spent two years at Johns Hopkins playing lacrosse, losing a few teeth, and attempting to like engineering at the behest of his father. In his junior year, he transferred to University of California, Berkeley, met Patricia Green of San Francisco, and overall enjoyed himself so thoroughly that in “four months, I had garnered four ‘F’s, a ‘D’, and a ‘C’ (in ROTC). What a great school!”
At the request of the university, Jerry took leave then spent two years in the Air Force, stationed in Lubbock, Texas, marrying Pat in 1955. At the conclusion of his tour, he returned to Berkeley, graduating in 1958. With their first child, Karyn, Jerry and Pat settled in Darien, where Jerry began his advertising career in Manhattan—though after several years he opted out of the rat race for a position at Nash Engineering.
The family grew with daughters Stacie and Kathleen, and they moved from a Cape Cod starter home to a rambling Victorian, and ultimately Jerry’s dream of a home near the water—alongside a canal, and surrounded by Long Island Sound and Saugatuck Bay in Westport, Connecticut.
Karyn, Stacie, and Kat remember their dad articulating the importance of a proper, firm handshake and respecting others. They remember the joy in the living room at 220 Middlesex Road on Sunday evenings with Jerry conducting from the ladder, one of them swinging on the swing, and all of them singing and dancing—whether it was to the Limelighters, Petula Clark, Neil Diamond, or The Monkees. He loved model trains, British naval historical novels, teaching the grandkids (“Go get the map!”), and liverwurst sandwiches.
A life long love was the New York Jets and the Ward family has been season ticket holders since 1964. Sundays were football days, whether home game or away, balmy or freezing, tailgating under the freeway at Shea Stadium with their regular crew or preparing for the card table spread by stocking up at Vavala’s Deli and hanging the Jets banner on the front split rail fence. Besides that, they painted posters advising the town for whom they were rooting all the way through the playoffs. Football was church.
Jerry was, according to Pat, “a traditionalist, but not entirely.” Though respect for elders and table manners were values and etiquette they retained from their respective upbringings, the trappings of the privileged became less and less important as time went on. Amid their upper-class suburban neighborhood in Darien, Jerry didn’t hesitate to express his lack of support for the Vietnam War, symbolized by a 6-foot black peace sign painted on the side of their bright yellow garage.
With a brief interruption of seven years for a divorce that “didn’t take,” Jerry and Pat have been married for 53 years. Jerry began their life together as a classic, traditional Republican. Over the decades, he evolved—with the help of his progressive, feminist, and politically active wife—and became a fervent and committed liberal Democrat.
Jerry joined Veterans for Peace and for a decade he helped erect the crosses at Arlington West. Jerry’s clothes have been and will be donated to homeless veterans. He would encourage others to donate also—at the Veterans Memorial building on Cabrillo Boulevard (ask for Carmen).
Besides loving Pat and rooting for the Jets, Jerry’s favorite pastimes were being on the water, making friends with every dog he met (a true dog whisperer), attempting to garden, good company, good food, wine, Johnny Walker Black on the rocks with a splash of soda and a twist while watching Rachel Maddow with Pat, having morning coffee on the front stoop listening to Pat read from the New York Times after he could no longer read, anything Italian, and making people smile.
In lieu of flowers, vote Democrat! (If this is out of the question, Jerry and Pat would be grateful for a donation to the Braille Institute of Santa Barbara, the Santa Barbara Sailing Center, or Domestic Violence Solutions.)
Jerry is survived by his wife Pat, daughters Karyn, Stacie, and Kathleen, sons-in-law Joseph Gentile and Mark Buechner, and grandchildren Michelle, Samantha and Matthew Buechner, Anthony Gentile, Isabella Ward Faith, and his sister Joan Lasley.