R.I.P. : Harry Hoyt, 97, Morristown lawyer, author, painter and official

Harry Hoyt saw a world of changes in his 97 years, and embraced them.

Born in the telegraph era, the former Morristown alderman recently joined Facebook to see what all the fuss was about.

“He was so interested in everything that was still going on…He was curious,” Beth Bayles said of her father, who died Monday of congestive heart failure.

Harry read the New York Times and the New Yorker until his final days. In an interview with MorristownGreen.com last winter, he assessed the political situation in Russia, a place he visited during the Soviet era.  He also gave a lengthy reading at Macculloch Hall of his translation of Pushkin’s tragic Eugene Onegin–a translation that he self-published in his 90s and never stopped tinkering on.

He got serious about painting landscapes in his 10th decade, practiced law until he was about 85, and finished backpacking the Appalachian Trail a couple of years shy of 80.

“He made his own beef jerky for hiking,” recalled his son, Paul Hoyt, a former Morristown councilman.

Harry taught himself Russian while stationed in Canada in World War II. He also studied German, French and Italian, and took classes in conversational Spanish well into his later years.

“Truly, he was a Renaissance man,” said retired Superior Court Judge Kenneth MacKenzie, recalling an elegant gentleman who performed any task with “style and grace.” Harry was a lawyer “who served with distinction for many years,” the Judge said.

Educated at Harvard and Yale, Harry regarded his admission to the bar in 1941 as a highlight of his life, and took pride in his profession.

“The rule of law is the best way to run a country, and the best country to live in is the one that follows the rule of law. And you can’t have the rule of law without lawyers,” Harry told us last year.  He praised President Barack Obama as “an absolutely first-rate lawyer” and said he “voted for him with enthusiasm.”

Harry Hoyt interview from 2011

Harry was a Republican alderman from 1952 to 1958. In 1971, he served on a charter commission that proposed changing the form of government from a board of aldermen to a town council, a move approved by voters the following year and implemented in 1973. Now a Democrat, Harry served as town attorney that year.

That also was the year Paul Hoyt was elected to the council, continuing a family political tradition that includes a congressman from Newark, a governor of Pennsylvania and a U.S. Solicitor General.

“Some sons have relationships with their fathers about baseball and sports,” said Paul, now a special education teacher near Tampa, Fla. “Mine was politics. That was our bridge. He would take me to the polls when I was 12 years old. I brought a clipboard. I could see the numbers, and see trends.”

(Side note: Paul’s mom Helen, who was married to Harry for 71 years, switched from the GOP to the Democratic party just for the 1973 primary, to vote for Paul. Her son won by one vote.)

Prospective candidates in Morristown’s Fourth Ward often sought Harry’s support.

“It was interesting to have these people in our living room. It gave me a real feel for things,” Paul said.

Other guests were formally attired members of the Shakespeare Club who read aloud plays by the Bard. Harry was a regular at Morristown Rotary luncheons for decades, and taught Beth how to play bridge. The household was sans television for most of Beth’s youth; the family listened to Edward R. Murrow newscasts on a radio in the dining room.

“He was a real intellectual,” Beth, a retired AT&T employee living in Morristown, said of her father. “He didn’t push it on us. He challenged us.”

Harry Hoyt at his book reading in 2011. Please click icon below for captions.

Linda Carrington has been a neighbor of the Hoyts since the late 1970s.

“I liked Harry from the moment I met him because he was very contentious,” Linda said. “Our first argument was over verbs. He asked me, ‘Do you know the difference between lay and lie?’ I said yes, one’s transitive and one’s intransitive. Helen said, ‘He’s met his match!'”

Don Enrique, as she called him, was a role model for Cristina Lambert, who taught his conversational Spanish class at the County College of Morris.

“He kept very active physically and mentally. I really admired him for that,” said the retired instructor, who described a wry personality with a keen memory who never boasted about his many talents. “He was such a delightful person. He will be sorely missed.”

A Morristown resident since 1940, Harry said last year that except for Speedwell Avenue, the town had not changed all that much. Big homes on prosperous Miller Road are in better shape than ever, he said, explaining that nowadays “it’s not as hard to run a large house because machines do the work.”

As a boy he scared his sister by invoking Kaiser Wilhelm, the German leader from World War I.  Harry considered President Franklin Roosevelt among the greatest figures of his lifetime.

Pressed last year for secrets of his longevity, Harry cited years of jogging and a heart attack that prompted him to become more health conscious. He quit drinking and smoking in his 60s, and voluntarily continued an aerobics rehab program for years after bypass surgery.

When asked if there was anything special that he was hoping to live long enough to see, he replied:

“To see Americans optimistic again.”

Harry is survived by his wife and their six children, Henry M. Hoyt of Springfield, Ma.; Beth Bayles of Morristown; Phil Hoyt of Portland, Ore.; Frances Hoyt of Parsippany; Paul Hoyt of Florida; and Alex Hoyt, who is pursuing a doctorate in linguistics in Zagreb, Croatia; and by 11 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren. A memorial service is being planned for the spring.

PRIOR STORIES ABOUT HARRY HOYT:

Harry Hoyt, 96, packs Morristown hall for Russian book reading

Podcast: Meet Harry Hoyt, Morristown’s 96-year-old author and translator