David D. Henry Sr. [07/26/2008]

David D. Henry Sr., founder of the African Scholarship Program of American Universities and the Latin American Scholarship Program of American Universities, died peacefully at home on June 27, 2008.David Henry was born in Wellesley, Mass. in 1919. He graduated from Harvard College in 1941. He served in the United States Navy in the Pacific from 1941 until the end of the war. After six years of teaching English and American History at Hotchkiss and Pomfret preparatory schools, he returned to Harvard in 1951, where he spent 10 years as the director of admissions, followed by 10 years as director of the Office of International Students. In 1960, while director of admissions, David Henry began the African Scholarship Program of American Universities (ASPAU), which brought students to study at more than 250 selective American colleges and universities. He traveled widely in Africa during the 1960s and was committed to expanding the educational resources of that continent's newly independent nations. The success of ASPAU led in turn to a similar program for Latin America (LASPU), which he founded in 1964. He was devoted to his advisees and maintained contact with many of them for decades. In time, his grandchildren turned to him for counsel on their college careers.David Henry had a beautiful baritone voice and was a skilled pianist, avid gardener, spellbinding raconteur, and accomplished woodsman. He deeply loved the Province of Nova Scotia, its wild lakes and rivers, and especially its southwestern coast, where he built a summer home in 1951. Later, he lived in and enjoyed greatly his homes in the Mount Washington Valley (where he co-founded Tin Mountain Conservation Center with his second wife, Barbara Rockwell Henry) and Casco Bay.With exuberance and generosity of spirit, David embraced friends and his family, inviting one and all to join in rousing choruses from Gilbert and Sullivan, long summer sails, fierce games of cribbage, baking extravaganzas, erudite literary or political conversations. Despite the progressive inroads of Alzheimer's over recent years, David carried on with grace, kindness, and humor, often raising his voice in song.David D. Henry Sr. is survived by his wife of 16 years, Randy Henry; his brother Richard Henry, of Seattle, Wash.; his sister Phyllis Stevens, of Cambridge, Mass.; his daughter Margaret Henry, of London, England; his son D. Dickinson Henry, Jr., of Concord, and four grandchildren Caleb Henry Smith, Hannah Henry Smith, MacHenry, and David D. Henry, III, and nephew, David Ehrenpreis, of Harrison, Va. His first wife, Marie Curnen, died in 1977 and his second wife, Barbara Rockwell in 1991. A celebration of David Henry's life was held at the St. Alban's Episcopal Church at 885 Shore Road in Cape Elizabeth, Maine on Tuesday, July 1, at 11 a.m. The family requests contributions be made to the Tin Mountain Conservation Center, 1245 Bald Hill Road, Albany, NH 03818.