Roy Chamberlain Brown

Roy Chamberlain Brown, age 93, of Franklin Township, and until recently, a resident of Cherryville in a house purchased in 1948 with the help of the WW2 GI Bill, died on January 10, 2021 at Hunterdon Medical Center in Raritan Township NJ.

Born in Irvington, NJ, June 9, 1927, he was the son of Roy Saxton Brown (1890-1954) and Edna Lois Chamberlain Brown (1893 - 1979). On February 2, 2012, he was predeceased by his friend and love for over forty years, Agnes R. Anderson.

In 1996 he retired from the Department of Business at DeSales University, formerly Allentown College, Center Valley, PA where he had been Assistant Professor of Marketing since 1990. His career as a full-time academic began in 1970, when he left industry to join the Rutgers University College Marketing faculty, and it continued with subsequent appointments at Trenton State College (now The College of New Jersey), and Rider College (renamed Rider University). Previously, he had taught as an Adjunct at Rutgers New Brunswick, and Rutgers Newark, starting in 1960, and later as a full-time Adjunct in the MBA Program of Fairleigh Dickenson University, Madison. He also taught an MBA course at Monmouth College, and an undergraduate marketing course at Lehigh University.

A 1956 graduate of Rutgers University College, with a BA in English, he earned an MBA in Marketing at the Columbia University Graduate School of Business (1960). He took predoctoral courses at the University of Pennsylvania, where he passed a reading examination in Spanish, then completed all coursework and passed reading examinations in German and French in the doctoral program in Communications at Temple University.

In 1946-47, he served in the Third Army's 97th Signal Battalion, redesignated the 97th Constabulary Signal Squadron, on Occupation duty in Germany. The experience is recorded in a memoir, 1946: A GI's Year in Occupied Germany, published in 2018 (ISBN978-0-0905846-0-9). Honorably discharged in 1947, he was employed by the Ortho Research Foundation, Raritan, a Division of Johnson & Johnson, as a Spectrophotometric Analyst, and laboratory assistant for the director of the Organic Chemistry Laboratory, then transferred to Ortho Pharmaceutical Corporation's Compounding department. In 1955, he joined Visking Corporation, Flemington, as the head of the Customer Service Department, a position he held for fifteen years, before leaving for academia.

While stationed in Germany, he purchased a camera at the PX and used it to record the aftermath of war. This sparked an interest in photography, and in the early 1950's he wrote a camera column for the Hunterdon County Democrat, and was president of the Hunterdon Camera Club. Over the course of seventy years, he has taken thousands of analog and digital photographs.

Other interests included playing a custom-made LoPrinzi electric mandolin with the Sons of the Whiskey Rebellion, a local ragtime band popular in the 1960s and 70s. Radio personality, author, and actor, Jean Shepherd, used the band's music as background for his monologues, and samples can be heard at flicklives.com, a Shepherd enthusiast website. During this period, he also sat in with piano player Hank Freyer at the Andover Hotel, Phillipsburg, accompanied by Bill Pichardo on acoustic guitar, and Marv Kitchen with washboard and blocks.

In 1941 he painted his first landscape, with oil paints provided by his father. In the 1950's, as a member of the Hunterdon County Art Alliance, and the Kittatinny Arts Group, he exhibited landscapes at shows in New York and Stroudsburg, PA. In the 1990's, through artist Bob Brain, he became interested in watercolor, and in 2014, won the blue ribbon for that medium at the State Senior Artists show.

In 1961, with Paul Robinson, Charles Temperley, John Schultz, Herman Broennle, Mark Schneider, and Jack Painter, he helped found the New Jersey Astronomical Association, which constructed, and operates the Paul Robinson observatory that houses a 26-inch telescope. The project grew into the Buzz Aldrin Astronomical Center, in Voorhees Park.

Licensed in 1962 with amateur radio call WA2TWS, from his home station he was an Air Force MARS Net Manager during the nation's involvement in Viet Nam. A Volunteer Examiner for the American Radio Relay League, he was also active in the New Jersey National Traffic System Morse Code (CW) message nets. He also held General, T-2 Telegraph, and GMDSS Operator/Maintainer commercial licenses, with ship radar endorsement. With the late Charles Kosman, WB2NQV, he was a founding member of the Cherryville Repeater Association which provides wide area mobile radio coverage via a network of remote antenna locations. In the early 1960s, he volunteered his radio skill as a member of Hunterdon County Civil Defense RACES (Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service), and was soon appointed Radiological Defense Officer, and RADEF Instructor. He later received State Police security clearance and took courses to become a Deputy to Al Kahn, County Coordinator for Civil Defense, now Emergency Management. There he met Kahn's secretary, Agnes Anderson, who became the love of his life until her death in 2012. In 1980-81, he served as Acting County Coordinator.

Funeral arrangements and cremation are under the direction of Holcombe-Fisher Funeral Home, 147 Main Street, Flemington, NJ 08822.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be sent to the Milford (NJ) Animal Shelter, Associated Humane Societies, Inc., Forked River, NJ, Animal Protection League of NJ, Englishtown, NJ, or an animal support organization of your choice.

For further information or to leave an online condolence, please visit www.holcombefisher.com.