Gemmill, John Henry

John Henry Gemmill

John Henry Gemmill of New Haven, CT, Southwest Harbor, and Franklin Maine, had a gentle death in the early hours of December 6, 2014 after a year of valiant, optimistic experiments fighting melanoma. Alongside was his wife, Stacey McGlone Gemmill, to whom he had been so very happily married since 1974. They had made their home in Guilford Connecticut from 1975 until 2013. The son of Ann-Mari Andersson and Henry Gemmill, John was born March 25th 1943 in Washington D.C. John and his sisters, lived and were educated in several U.S. cities, as well as in London and Paris as a result of his father’s career with The Wall Street Journal. After graduating from Yale University (B.A. 1965), he served as a Lt. JG in the U.S. Navy 1965-67. From 1968 until 2013, he continuously practiced architecture in Connecticut primarily with Architectural Services of Milford, CT and for an architect and friend John immensely admired, Robert Page, Architect, of Stony Creek, CT. A skilled yachtsman, in the years immediately after college John enjoyed chartering Hinckleys which he and friends took often into the Bay of Fundy and later, with Stacey’s family and their friends, sailed in warmer waters of New England and the Caribbean.

In 2001 John commissioned a J32 sloop which the Gemmills sailed out of the Noank Shipyard until last year. The remarkable resources of art, music, and literature at Yale University, and in New York City were a major component of his family’s cultural life and social life. To all with whom he shared his life and work, John provided extraordinarily thoughtful, steadfast, affectionate friendship and skills. He was a generous and gracious host, a terrific uncle. John was predeceased by his parents and by his sister, Elisabeth Izenour and by a brother-in-law he hugely liked and admired, the late Steve Izenour. In addition to his wife, he is survived by his sister Ann-Mari Gemmill of Takoma, Park, MD, a beloved sister-in-law Jamie McGlone duPont of Washington, D.C., nieces Ann-Kristin Izenour Stefany, Tessa Izenour, Juliana Ratner, Samantha duPont, Hilary duPont and two nephews, John Izenour of Southwest Harbor, Maine, and Blake Ratner of Penang, Malaysia; there are as well several great nieces and a great nephew and six cousins. There shall be only private celebrations of John’s lucky, happy life. As gestures of sympathy and memorials, his family will certainly be grateful for contributions to Doctors Without Borders, Partners in Health  and/or the Henry Gemmill Scholarship Fund c/o the Franklin Historical Society, P.O. Box 317, Franklin Maine 04634. Arrangements are with the Hawley Lincoln Memorial, 493 Whitney Ave., New Haven.

Published in The New Haven Register on Dec. 10, 2014