Rash's Surname Index
Notes for Donald Alexander PURDY
Donald A. Purdy, lawyer and banker
By JOHN F. MORRISON
Philadelphia Daily News
morrisj@@phillynews.com 215-854-5573
WHEN WORLD WAR II broke out, Donald Alexander Purdy was expected to follow the lead of his brother, Tom, and seek conscientious-objector status.
After all, he was a Quaker. Not only a Quaker but a descendant of prominent Quaker theologians going back to his grandfather. But Alexander Purdy surprised the family by leaving his studies at Haverford College and enlisting in the Navy. He served in the South Pacific as an officer, participating in the island-hopping campaign of Gen. Douglas MacArthur, including a crucial two-day battle in the Philippines. As a reservist, he was called back during the Korean War.
Alexander Purdy, who retired in 1993 as president, chairman of the board and CEO of First Keystone Federal Savings Bank in Media and a former Chester lawyer, died Nov. 23 after a lengthy illness. He was 85 and lived in Wallingford.
He was born in Oskaloosa, Iowa, to Alexander Converse Purdy, a well-known Quaker teacher and writer, and Jeanette Hadley Purdy.
He graduated from the Moses Brown Prep School in Providence, R.I. His studies at Haverford were interrupted by the war. He took officer training and became a lieutenant j.g.
He later studied at Swarthmore College, and received his law degree from the University of Pennsylvania.
During his Navy service, his attack transport carried troops in the island-hopping strategy. In 1945, his ship took 150 soldiers from Leyte Gulf in the Philippines for the first attack on Zamboanga Island as part of the conquest of Mindanao.
After the Pacific war ended when atomic bombs struck Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, Alexander remained in the Philippines for about a year doing ferry-service duty among the islands.
He arrived at Astoria, Ore., from Pearl Harbor in the summer of 1946 in charge of three landing craft to be decommissioned.
After he received his law degree, Alexander served as assistant attorney general in Idaho in the late '40s before returning to the Philadelphia area in 1950.
He was a partner in a Chester law firm before joining the First Keystone Federal Savings Bank where he worked for more than 50 years. He had a lifetime love of tennis, sailing and reading. He once built a sunfish out of wood, which, although heavy to carry, sailed fairly well, his family said.
He enjoyed the Poconos where his family vacationed at Buck Hill Falls every summer for 40 years. He also enjoyed Ocean City and Somers Point, N.J. He was a lifelong member and overseer of the Middletown Friends Meeting, a member of the Wallingford Historical Society and Spring Haven Country Club. He was an avid Phillies and Eagles fan.
He is survived by his wife, Cordelia Grant Crain Purdy; two sons, Donald Alexander Purdy Jr. and David Atkinson Purdy; a sister, Adalyn Purdy Jones; a granddaughter; his wife's children, Thomas Grant Crain, Terry Donald Crain and Cynthia Louise Crain, and three step-grandchildren. He was predeceased by his first wife, Jane Hallowell Hough; a son, Stephen Ellison Purdy, and his brother, Thomas Atkinson Purdy.
Services: Memorial service 1:30 p.m. Saturday at the Middletown Friends Meeting, 435 N. Middletown Road, Lima. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Middletown Friends.
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