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Former Westhampton Beach summer resident Stanley Pierson Lewis died on July 31 in Fairfield, Connecticut, from complications associated with knee surgery. He was 85.
Born February 18, 1924, he was the oldest son of Stanley R. Lewis and Grace Thorne Pierson. He graduated from the Portsmouth Priory School in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, in 1942 and from Brown University in 1946.
Like many of his generation, he interrupted his university studies for military service. Mr. Lewis completed naval officer training in Rhode Island and was an officer with the patrol torpedo boats serving in the Pacific. Family members said he was very proud of his service in the fast and aggressive “PTs.”
Mr. Lewis worked for Shell Oil Company and Bowne & Company, and was also a manager of the Olympic Towers in New York City. He loved to sail, having grown up sailing SS yachts at the Westhampton Yacht Squadron in Westhampton Beach.
He was an avid and proficient sailor, racing his Etchells yacht named “Ruffian” as a member of Indian Harbor Yacht Club in Greenwich, Connecticut, where he was the oldest skipper in the fleet. A longtime resident of Southport, Connecticut, in later years he resided in Westport, Connecticut and Vero Beach, Florida.
In addition to being the proud grandson of Lewis E. Pierson, chairman of the Irving Trust Company from 1916 to 1935, he was also a distant relative of Abraham Pierson, one of the founders of Yale University; and Abraham Pierson’s father, also named Abraham Pierson, one of the original settlers of Newark, New Jersey.
He is survived by three daughters, Anne Lewis Drake and Amy Lewis Doering, both of Connecticut, and Julie Lewis Duke of Rhode Island; a son, Douglas Lewis of Connecticut; two brothers, John T. Lewis and Lewis P. Lewis; six grandchildren; and his ex-wife, Julia Nicholson Beals. He was predeceased by a sister, Barbara Lewis Heywood Bilhuber.
Memorial services were held on August 25 at Trinity Episcopal Church in Southport, Connecticut, and on August 27 at Immaculate Conception Church in Quiogue. Following the service in Quiogue, the family interred Mr. Lewis’s ashes in a private ceremony.
on Sep 2, 2009