Yale University

In Memoriam

Chris Getman

Chris died on July 9, 2023. We remember him as the heart and soul of our Class, and miss him tremendously. Here are some ways to remember him.


Obituary

The New Haven Register

July 21, 2023


Chris Getman
Yale graduation 1964

Christopher H. Getman, of Charlestown, RI and New Haven, CT, died after a brief illness on July 9, 2023. His wife of 59 years, Toddie, was by his side.

Born on August 18, 1941 in Syracuse, NY, Chris lost his father in WWII at the age of three. From that time on, the cultivation of meaningful relationships became a defining mission in his life. He did this as a devoted husband, a loving father, a loyal friend, a joyful teacher, a community organizer, a generous philanthropist, a patron of the arts, a zealous — and somewhat wild — athlete, an energetic practical joker, a passionate server of good causes, and a relentless advocate for anyone who needed it. Though he had a reputation for mischief, he never strayed from his strong moral compass. He gave everyone the benefit of the doubt but was intolerant of greed or cruelty.


Chris Getman
in recent years

After graduating from The Hill School (Pottstown, PA), Chris moved on to Yale University. Always grateful for the blessings in his life, Chris considered the opportunity to attend Yale among the greatest. After receiving his M.A. from Reed College and teaching at The Hotchkiss School for five years, Chris returned to New Haven in 1970 to work for the Yale Alumni Association and to coach football and baseball. The move back to New Haven marked the beginning of a lifetime of dedication to both the University and its surrounding community.

His many accomplishments, and the organizations that he served, are too numerous to list, but the highlight reel includes being a recipient of the Elm/Ivy Award; the Yale Medal, honoring outstanding voluntary individual service to the University; Mory's Cup; and the G.H.W. Bush Lifetime of Leadership Award. Chris also served as Chairman of the Alexis de Tocqueville Society of The United Way, was a top fundraiser for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society for more than 30 years, and was the winner of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society Hope Award.


The current Handsome Dan
greeting guests at the reception
following Chris’s memorial
service on Sep. 25, 2023

Throughout his adult life he was a resolute donor of blood, donating more than 21 gallons by the time of his passing despite many surgeries that interrupted his routine. Chris was the longest-serving board member of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra. His service to Mory's, the Connecticut Fund for the Environment, the Center for Humans and Nature, the Hastings Center for Bioethical Research, The Special Olympics, the Urban Resources Initiative, and the Community 2000 Education Foundation — among so many other organizations — touched the lives of countless people. One of his greatest delights was being the keeper of Yale's Handsome Dan bulldogs for more than 30 years.

Chris loved his professional careers — first as a teacher and coach, and later as a successful investment advisor — for the ways that they allowed him to connect with people, to bring them together, and to share his infectious curiosity, passion, and humor.

A devoted family man, Chris is survived by his wife, Evelyn (Toddie), his daughters Sheila, Hilary, and Julia, his sons-in-law John, Erik, and Charlie, and by his six grandchildren, Glenn, Will (Sherwin), Henry, Evie (Pearson), Chris, and Audrey (Cunningham). He is also survived by an extended family of cousins and step-siblings whom he adored and for whom he served as ringleader, in addition to a wider circle of chosen family who enriched his life immeasurably.

Chris's legacy can be honored by donating blood, feeding the birds, and bringing joy to your heart by listening to music
.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to Community 2000 Educational Foundation, PO Box 1161, Charlestown, RI 02813; The Urban Resources Initiative, 195 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511; and The M.S. Society, 6520 North Andrews Avenue, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33309.

Funeral services will be held at Trinity Church on the Green, 230 Temple Street, Monday, September 25, 2023 at 11:00. Arrangements are with the Hawley Lincoln Memorial. Following the funeral will be a reception at the New Haven Lawn Club, 193 Whitney Avenue.

The funeral services will be live-streamed here at 11:00am on September 25. It can also be watched later using the same link.

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Funeral Service

Trinity on the Green, New Haven, CT

September 25, 2023

A crowded church and an untold number of Zoom attendees were witness to Chris’s memorial service, which the program described as “Celebrating an Exuberant Life of Generosity and Spirit.” Many of his classmates made the trip to be there in person, including Pete Putzel ’64 who gave invited remarks during the service, after Chris’s three daughters did the same. The following video captured the event. Below the video is a transcript of Pete’s remarks.

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Remembrance by Pete Putzel ’64

A transcript of the remarks given by Pete at Chris’s memorial service

September 25, 2023


Pete Putzel ’64

Seeing the number of people in this vast church gives me an utter impulse to tell you a Yogi Berra story. One of his teammates said: “Yogi, you're going to this funeral and that funeral. Why do you go to all these funerals?” And Yogi said: “You gotta go to people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours.”

But we're all here because of a very special bond with a very special person. I am Pete Putzel. It is my real privilege to speak on behalf of the entire Yale class of 1964. Many of us, and our wives, are here today. You can recognize many of us by the Yale ‘64 ties that many of us are wearing. More on that subject in a few minutes.

I should add that I speak in particular on behalf of one classmate who is not here. And that is Terry Holcombe, who was one of Chris Getman’s very closest friends, who died suddenly and shockingly a short month before Chris did. If Terry were with us today, he would be speaking for our class, but I'm proud to stand here to tell you about this wonderful leader that we had.

In asking me to speak today, Toddie Getman was her usual direct self. She wrote, and I quote: “Please talk about Chris and Yale, but keep it very short, she said. Everyone will want to start eating and drinking as soon as you are finished.” I can hear Chris giving that precise instruction. He was much more interested in eating and drinking with his vast community of friends than he was in listening to some bloviating classmate. Now I always do as Toddie tells me, but it's impossible to keep it short when it comes to talking about Chris Getman and Yale.

A couple of general observations … As I'm sure most of you know, he received a triple crown of awards that the university confers upon an alumnus, including the Yale Medal for individual service to the community and to the university, the Mory’s Cup for his unstinting efforts over many years to save and to support our beloved Mory’s Association, and perhaps the honor of which he was most proud, the George H. W. Bush Lifetime of Leadership Award. I believe that he was the only person to receive all three of these honors, each of which recognized Chris Getman’s devotion to the university throughout his lifetime and over countless hours and hours and different projects.

And of course, as we all know, Chris and Toddie Getman were the proud owners of four notably flatulent Yale bulldogs -- Handsome Dan XIV through XVII -- and they spent countless days over 33 consecutive years shepherding each dog to Yale athletic events, commencements, and reunions. Perhaps the highlight of these years was the retirement ceremony for Handsome Dan XVII, known to his family as Sherman, when he was given a formal commission as a midshipman captain in the Yale chapter of the United States Naval Reserve. And, at Chris's suggestion, the bulldog was led to midfield between halves of the Yale-Harvard football game and presented with a beautiful crimson fire hydrant.

As an undergraduate, Chris and a very special group of roommates were devoted members of Pierson College, and in 59 years since our graduation, he mercilessly flogged his Pierson classmates to make sure that in every fundraising effort, for which Chris Getman worked essentially nonstop, Pierson would lead the league, and lead the class, in donations to Yale. And by the way, his solicitations did not stop with the alumni fund. He sold memorial bricks for our class. He raised contributions for the Multiple Sclerosis Foundation with his walks. He raised money for the New Haven Urban Resources Initiative, the New Haven Symphony, and myriad other causes. One classmate remarked that “Chris Getman’s hand was perpetually on my wallet.” But let it be said that he and Toddie were as generous to all of these organizations as he was relentless in soliciting for them.

I can't resist telling you of one fundraising venture that perhaps fell short of its mark. In an excess of enthusiasm, Chris decided that selling Class of 1964 neckties would be a hot-ticket item to raise money for our class. So he ordered -- and paid up front for -- cartons and cartons of Yale 1964 ties to be produced and shipped to their house. The cartons filled up most of the downstairs closet. Chris flogged them mercilessly. He hawked them to each of us. A number of us bought them. But even after several class reunions, whole cartons of these ties remained unsold. At length, after several class reunions, Toddie put her foot down and started to give the things away, and even then it was a hard sell.

Chris would certainly want me to tell you of his splendid three-year career as a left-hander for the Yale varsity baseball team. He had a fast ball that attracted the serious attention of a number of major-league scouts, but his control left just about everything to be desired. I'm reliably told that more than one opposing batter approached the plate dressed in full catcher’s gear. Chris’s years as a varsity baseball player and later as a coach made him an eloquent and passionate advocate for the place of athletes and athletics within Yale College. I warmly encourage you to go to our class website, yale64.org, where you can see the extraordinary speech that he made when he received the George H. W. Bush Leadership Award. It can truly be said that throughout his lifetime, Chris Getman was a warm athletic supporter.

Throughout our alumni years, Chris served as the chair or cochair of a number of our class reunions, including our 50th, and he used these occasions to wax philosophical about the aging process, as only he could do. Most memorably, on the occasion of our 40th reunion, he arranged for a well-known author to speak to us on the heady topic of passages in men's lives. In introducing her, he observed that we as a generation were passing from the stage of a semi-annual erection to an annual semi-erection. He was known for his potent sense of humor. I will confess that in preparing these remarks, I had considerable trepidation about mentioning this, but I spoke with a number of classmates, many of whom are here today, and to a man, each of them responded that Chris himself would happily have used the line if he was speaking here.

Throughout the years, our class has gathered for semi-annual golf outings at the Yale Course. Somehow Chris Getman appointed himself our scribe and it was his job to summarize the results of each tournament for a report to the class, Years from now, when historians review these reports, they will be astonished to learn that Getman was undefeated over the course of twenty years. By his historical account, he won every tournament. Classmates used to compete actively to play in his foursome, knowing that history would record them as members of the winning team. Well before Donald Trump, Chris Getman invented fake news.

I should add that a short month before he passed away, Chris attended our June golf outing. By then he was physically unable to play, but dutifully rode around the course in a golf cart, recording all of our foibles, and he submitted his account of the event short weeks before he died. And of course, in his report, he disqualified every participant who played for assorted rules violations, and then declared that he had somehow won the tournament. And you want to know something? He did. He remains undefeated.

Following every golf outing, Chris would assemble us at his beloved Mory’s for the sort of celebratory festivities that everyone in this room has experienced with this man at one time or another. On one particular occasion he distributed an elegant, beautifully engraved card which read, and I quote: “Christopher Getman hereby apologizes for his utterly unacceptable behavior on the night of _____________.” The date was left blank, to be filled in by the recipient.

Quite apart from the golf outings, Chris convened a monthly Mory's luncheon for classmates in the New Haven area and brought any number of classmates together who had not known each other until those luncheons. Even as his health was failing, he was working to schedule our July luncheon. Sadly, he died three days before the scheduled luncheon and, hearing this devastating news, fourteen of us showed up. And in a luncheon, and in a moment that none of us will ever forget, we shared our feelings for this man.

Just this past Monday, fifteen golfers and their wives dined at Mory's with Toddie, Sheila, and Hillary to reminisce about Chris Getman. Men of our generation find it difficult to express our feelings. We were born in the 40s, brought up in the uptight 50s, and went to college in the early years of the button-down 60s. It's much easier for us to joke and to prank and to tell war stories than to express our love. But everyone at that July luncheon, and at Mory’s last Monday, will agree that each of us was there, not simply to express our enormous respect for this man, but to say how much we loved him. He was the heart and soul of our class.

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Chris’s talk at our 50th Reunion

Here is a 6-minute talk by Chris presented at our 50th Reunion during a session entitled "A Kaleidoscope of Passions."

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Chris’s essay in our 50th Reunion Class Book

May 2014

I have three clippings under the glass on my desk. The first says: "When we destroy nature, we diminish ourselves and compromise our children." The second: "If people sometimes do not do silly things, nothing intelligent would ever get done." The third: "He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much, .... Who has left the world a better place than he found it."

My father was killed in World War II, and I suffered some serious psychological fallout as a result. I was constantly in trouble and a burden to my mother. Fortunately, she had a job at Tower Hill School in Wilmington, so I received a fine education. When I was twelve she married a prominent Philadelphian who, given his background, was blindly Republican, a moderate racist, and a serious anti-Semite. Because this was my background, it probably describes me and many of our classmates as well. Being at Yale changed all of that.

I went to The Hill School in ninth grade, and for some strange reason, the headmaster, Ned Hall '41, took a shine to me. Even though I spent an inordinate amount of time in the Dean's Office, he saw to it that I ended up at Yale. My rebellious way continued and as a result l was "rusticated" three times during my freshman year. As a result, l ended up in the Class of 1964. This was a true blessing.

I maintain that the period from 1960-61 was one of the most seminal in our country's history. Our class, typically Yale, was 97% white, 90% Christian, 60% Republican, and 60% educated at private schools. Many of us entered with our white bucks, flattops, and Kingston Trio albums, and left going on Freedom Rides, less tidily coiffed, not trusting anyone over thirty, more socially tolerant, and listening to the Beatles and Joan Baez.

I married Toddie Huston two weeks after the Princeton reunion baseball game. We've had an interesting 49+ year marriage, not without difficulties, but fun and rewarding. We have three beautiful and interesting daughters, three great sons-in-law, and each family has a boy and a girl. What could be better? Toddie was diagnosed with MS in 1975 and has remained courageous and upbeat ever since. ln 1989 she was initiated into and received an award from our class in recognition of all of the tailgates, meals, beds, and good company she provided to classmates over the years.

I taught English at Hotchkiss for five years, then went to Yale to work in the Alumni Fund Office and as an assistant coach in football and baseball. Following Yale I then began a successful 30-year career at Merrill Lynch, if you measure success by how much you produce. I was often conflicted by the fact that companies grow primarily by increasing consumption, which is not necessarily good for the planet. After retiring from Merrill, I bought Soundview Capital Management Company, a small investment management company. It has been rewarding and allowed me to be true to Toddie's and my vows of "for better, for worse, but not for lunch."

I'm not interested in having the biggest garage, the largest portfolio, or the most stamps on my passport of anyone in the Class. Rather, I'm content going through life being "filthy comfortable," engaged with family, friends, and community, and in reasonably good health. Being the custodian of Handsome Dan since 1983 has been both a privilege and a joy.

In addition to the blessing of having such a wonderful and unique family, I regard my affiliation with both Yale and our class as a transformative experience of my life. As the paper on my desk says, "I hope to leave the world a better place than I found it."

Editor's Note — Several years ago the Class Council inducted Toddie Getman as an Honorary Member of the Class of '64, in recognition of her unstinting support for all class events and her stewardship of several Handsome Dans. Her comments follow:

I am very grateful to the class of '64 for making me an honorary member. This class has played such a significant and meaningful role in our lives; old friends and new are so important to us.

As many of you know, life for the past 50 years with Chris Getman has been anything but dull! We have so much to make us proud. Three wonderful daughters, three terrific sons-in-law, and six interesting and beautiful grandchildren. Our lives have kept us busy and engaged. In spite of physical issues, thankfully our senses of humor seem to be alive and well.

May we leave this world smiling.

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Chris’s acceptance of Yale’s Lifetime of Leadership Award

In 2012 Chris was awarded Yale’s Lifetime of Leadership Award, making him the only person in Yale history to receive the Yale Medal, the Mory’s Cup, and the Lifetime of Leadership Award. Here is his acceptance speech.

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Chris’s letter to Evie

On the occasion of the birth of his granddaughter Evie, 20-odd years ago, Chris wrote her the following letter. It was sent from Kona Village, Hawaii.

Dear Evie,

Welcome aboard. I am really glad that you’re with us, and reports have it that you’re a really nice kid. I can’t wait to meet you when you come to Julia Perry’s wedding in May.

Hopefully your life will be full of joy and challenges. I urge you to try anything that interests you, no matter how weird it may seem, and not to give up if something seems difficult. It’s the most difficult challenges which bring the greatest rewards.

I’d encourage you to try to get the best education possible. The more you know, the more opportunities will be open to you. I hope that as a matter of course that music will be a big part of your life. Bug your parents to build a big collection, and to play music of all kinds for you constantly. Knowing music will bring you great joy.

You are part of a diverse and loving family and I hope that over time you’ll be able to get to know and become close to not only those in your immediate family (aunts uncles, cousins, grandparents, and great-grandparents) but that you’ll get to know those in your extended family as well.

Develop a sense of humor. In our family that shouldn’t be too hard because the bloodlines are there. Humor and the ability not to take things too seriously, especially when they seem bad, will take you a long way. What’s more, life is a lot easier when you walk around with a smile rather than with a frown.

Be loyal to your friends. This may sound like an obvious attitude, but it isn’t. There will be times when your friends will disappoint you and hurt your feelings. This is a sad but normal occurrence, but if you can understand that people are sometimes thoughtless, but very rarely intentionally mean, you’ll feel better. Do not tolerate people who are intentionally mean.

You have a lot to look forward to. You have a kind, patient mother and a father who is determined to make your life happy and productive. You’re lucky to have a brother with whom you’ll have a lot of fun, and cousins close by who will take good care of you. Your aunts Sheila and Julia are special people, and your uncles John and Charlie will make you laugh a lot.

I can’t wait to meet you and hope someday we can come here again as a family.

Love, Boompa

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Articles from our Class News

Over the years, Chris was featured in many articles in the "class news" section of this website. Here are a few noteworthy stories, in reverse chronological order. Click the links to read the stories. The latest was posted one month before he died.

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Remembrance by Ian Robertson ’63

Chris Getman matriculated with the Class of 1963 but graduated with the Class of 1964. He therefore had many close friends from both classes. Ian Robertson, a friend from the Class of 1963, offers the following remembrance and tribute.

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