Obituary of Charles G Hurd

Charles Gazzam Hurd Jr. March 11, 1930 – December 8, 2015 Charlie Hurd, affectionately known as Doodis, Big Doodzers, and Chu Chu, by his children and grandchildren, died peacefully at his home in Washington, NJ at the age of 85. Born in New York City to Marie Louise Van Zandt Schreiber and Charles Gazzam Hurd Sr., Charlie was a sensitive child who loved animals, books, and radio-theater, passions that would remain a part of his life until the end. Academics were his salvation from a difficult early family life. He was reading by the time he entered Kindergarten, and after being promoted from 2nd grade to 4th grade, won scholarships to Brooks School in North Andover, MA, and later to Yale University, where his father and grandfather had studied. A momentary lack of academic focus during his junior year of college lead to three years in the Army, first as an enlisted man and later as a Commissioned Officer having achieved the rank of Second Lieutenant upon graduation from OCS. He returned to Yale the following year with a renewed sense of purpose, and graduated with honors in 1954. Charlie soon accepted a position at the Prudential, where he met and eventually married Sue Crane. He bought her father's 200+ year old home in New Vernon and there they spent the next 20 years raising their family, including a variety of stray cats and dogs, many of whom had been "found along the side of the road." In the late 1960s, Charlie started his own company, Reliance Programs and Systems Consultants, Inc. – and later Vantage Systems -- which provided payroll services to many high-profile clients in and around New York City. After Sue died in 1979, Charlie re-married and started a second career in real estate, as well as a second family. He, his wife Kathleen, and their growing family moved to Basking Ridge where they remained for 25 years before moving to Washington in 2011. Charlie lived a fascinating life, the details of which he began documenting in the last years of his life. He'd gone to boarding school with Anthony Perkins, attended a party hosted by Bette Davis, received a kiss from Eleanor Roosevelt, and danced with Jacqueline Bouvier. Yet in spite of the illustrious circles in which he traveled, he remained humble to the core – a man who eschewed pageantry, abhorred confrontation, made decisions exclusively from his heart, and valued family above all. As a young parent, Charlie was often more like a big brother to his older daughters than he was a traditional father. He'd sneak the portable mini TV up to their room after bedtime so they could watch Batman together, and coached them to cry as he pretended to issue disciplinary spankings at their mother's behest. Smuggling the girls into M-rated drive-in movies under a blanket in the way-back of the station wagon were de rigueur for a Saturday night. And one time he orchestrated an epic Halloween prank involving a séance, the ghost of Benedict Arnold, and a couple of hydrocarbon fireballs that sent several 11-year-old girls into hysterics; an event that surely would have sparked an outcry on social media today. Charlie occasionally embraced practical parenting too. He taught his kids to drive a stick shift, and made sure they knew how to change a tire. He spent countless hours tutoring them in troublesome subjects and provided coaching in various sports so that his non-athletically-gifted children could win at least one blue ribbon on Field Day. And when his kids were bothered by bullies, he taught them how to break an arm in one swift move. Thankfully for everyone involved, it never became necessary to execute "the move." Charlie excelled at the art of procrastination. He'd save every dish, tool, and appliance that broke in the genuine belief he'd eventually fix it, which of course never happened. He rarely got around to mowing the lawn and almost never produced a birthday gift on time. But he could engage in philosophical discussions on every topic from the migration of Germanic peoples, to drama vs. history in Shakespeare's Richard III, to gun control in today's society, for hours at a stretch. He knew something about everything. Charlie didn't have much interest in preventative auto-maintenance or buying things "new". But he was a master at using it up, wearing it out, making-do, and jerry-rigging. Charlie is remembered as a kind, gentle soul with simple needs, an enormous heart, and an infinite capacity for forgiveness. He loved Peter Pan, Eggs Benedict, Masterpiece Theater, Yale, corned beef, Moby Dick, random facts, and traditions. Every Christmas Eve he'd sit on the sofa with his children and grandchildren gathered around him and read "The Night Before Christmas" from the same book his mother had read to him and his brother as boys. No one ever got too old for it. He believed unfailingly in the power of formal education and always looked at the bright side, even when others insisted it didn't exist. He never saw the bad in anyone. Charlie is predeceased by his first wife Susan Crane Hurd. He is survived by his second wife Kathleen Hurd, daughters Amy Hurd Fetchko and her husband Michael of Basking Ridge, Elizabeth (Vicky) Hurd Knowles and her husband Christopher of Basking Ridge, Marisela Hurd of NY, step-daughter Amanda Hewitt of Washington, sons Thomas Hurd and his wife Jacqueline of Ft. Knox, KY, and Patrick Hurd of Washington, a brother, Bruce Adam and his wife Parry of Flemington, and 15 grandchildren. "Try to empathize with these people, considering their times and their own upbringings and circumstances. Think of them always as human beings - children, grown men and women, old people, with all the good and all the bad to which flesh is heir…. Without them, we would not be here." Charles Gazzam Hurd, from his Memoir In lieu of flowers, memorial donations can be made to Tabby's Place – a Cat Sanctuary (tabbysplace.org) and St. Hubert's Animal Welfare Center (sthuberts.org).