wfn.org | Notes about people

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ecunet.org>]

Note #7029 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

25-January-2002
02039

Notes about people

by Jerry L. Van Marter

The Rev. Ernest Gordon, longtime chaplain at Princeton University who came to religious faith in the squalor, cruelty and death of a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp along the Kwai River in southeast Asia, died Jan. 16 after a lengthy illness. He was 85.

The story of Gordon's ordeal is told in the upcoming movie "To End All Wars," based on his 1962 book, Through the Valley of the Kwai. Gordon said he began to find God when, as a Scottish soldier, he was captured by the Japanese in 1942 and forced with thousands of other prisoners to build a railroad through the jungles of Burma and Thailand along the Kwai River. He went free when the Japanese surrendered in 1945.

Gordon was born in Greenock, Scotland, in 1916 and studied at Glasgow University and St. Andrews before joining the Royal Air Force in 1936. After the war he resumed his studies, earning degrees from London University and Hartford Theological Seminary in Connecticut. He was ordained by the Church of Scotland in 1950 and came to the United States shortly thereafter, settling on Long Island, NY. 

In 1954, Gordon became chaplain at Princeton and later dean of the chapel, a post he held until his retirement in 1981.

His wife of 51 years, Helen, died in 1997. He is survived by a son, Alistair; a daughter, Lillian Crozier; a sister, Grace Kerr; and six grandchildren.

# # #

At its most recent meeting, the Presbyterian Publishing Corporation (PPC) board of directors unanimously reelected C. Davis Perkins to a third four-year term as president and publisher of the Presbyterian Church (USA)'s publishing operation.

Perkins has been CEO of PPC since its inception in 1994.
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