Hotchkiss Mourns the Passing of Former Trustee Philip Pillsbury Jr. '53, P'89,'91, GP'20,'22
Career diplomat in the U.S. Foreign Service, longtime Hotchkiss trustee, and beloved friend to innumerable Hotchkiss students, faculty, staff, and alumni, Philip W. Pillsbury ’53, P’89,’91, GP’20,’22 passed away on March 3, 2021. He was 85.
In more than three decades of service as a diplomat with the U.S. Information Agency, Mr. Pillsbury served in posts in Europe, Africa, South America, and Washington, DC. He served successively in Madrid, Florence, Bamako, Antananarivo, Lubumbashi, Teheran, and Buenos Aires. He directed the Youth Exchange Program and was twice recognized with the Meritorious Honor Award.
Significantly, it was at Hotchkiss that he cultivated an affinity for foreign languages that would prove to be especially valuable during his long career serving in a number of different countries. While serving in Mali and Madagascar, he learned to speak Malagasy and Bambara. At Hotchkiss, he spoke Spanish fluently and won the Spanish Prize for two years.
The embodiment of a friendly Midwesterner – modest and down-to-earth − this Minnesota native was known to one and all as “Phil.” He loved Hotchkiss, from his involvement in School activities as a student, to the numerous roles he played as an alumni volunteer, including 15 years as a trustee. The superlatives in the Senior Poll next to his name in the 1953 Misch yearbook foretold an accomplished life: “Done Most for Hotchkiss,” “Most Influential,” “Most Likely to Succeed,” and “Most Popular.”
Mr. Pillsbury followed in the footsteps of his father, Philip W. Pillsbury ’20, and other relatives in choosing Hotchkiss. Philip and his brother Henry ’54, P’87 (who passed away in 2019) both arrived in Lakeville from Wayzata, MN, in September 1950. He was a lower mid, and Henry was a prep. In a 2012 article in the Hotchkiss Magazine, Henry Pillsbury recalled of his brother: “He became popular with alacrity … His combination of intelligence, ostentatious skill in Spanish (after only a year of it at Blake), good nature, fairness, optimism, hockey prowess, and cheerful goofiness made him a class leader for life. He was friendly to everyone ̶- my classmates included -- and an enemy of baiting, as I learned when he caught me tormenting anyone.”
At Hotchkiss, Mr. Pillsbury learned from English teacher Richard Gurney “the love of English lit and American lit” and began memorizing favorite works. One favorite, which he recited in 2007 during a discussion with a Hotchkiss English class, was William Wordsworth’s hauntingly beautiful, 208-line “Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood.”
He played hockey all of his years at Hotchkiss, served on the Student Council, and held offices in Student Government. He acted in School theatrical productions, including in one musical, and was elected president of the St. Luke’s Society as an upper mid. “The concept of service has always been here at Hotchkiss,” he said once in an interview. “After Hotchkiss, I was chairman of the Yale Charities Drive, which was a huge job my senior year at Yale. That came right out of my experience in the St. Luke’s Society.”
During his time in Lakeville, he also cultivated another interest that became a lifelong passion: photography. “The first camera was an old Voigtländer,” he recalled in the 2012 Hotchkiss Magazine interview. “Taking photos really began at Hotchkiss. Now I’ve got somewhere in the neighborhood of 60,000 slides. They tell the story of what I’ve done.”
Making Friends for America through the USIA
After graduating from Yale, Mr. Pillsbury earned a Certificate in Political Science at the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris. While living abroad, he observed an emerging anti-Americanism that concerned him. He wished these critics had a more accurate understanding of facts about the United States.In 1959, he joined the United States Information Agency (USIA). He chose to work in cultural affairs, focusing on the American libraries, English teaching, exchanges of students and scholars, and the presentation of lecturers abroad.
After six years, he returned to the U.S. with the plan to work in international business, probably for the Pillsbury Company, founded by his great-grandfather. Then a surprising employment choice pointed the way to his future career and gave him the skills, he later said, to be successful as a diplomat in the foreign service.
From 1967 to 1970 he directed the opportunity employment program for the Minneapolis Urban League. That experience with the Urban League informed all of his adult life, he said. “It was hard to tell ‘America’s story to the world’ without having first hand experience as to what was going on in the country at that time,” he said in 2012. He needed to be in the U.S. in that period to see the history-making free speech, antiwar, and civil rights movements of the time with his own eyes before attempting to interpret them for others.
During those three years he realized that the business world really wasn’t for him. “I stayed close with the Pillsbury Company and its traditions, but the foreign service was what I loved doing. From then on, I was a better officer for what I had experienced in Minneapolis, from people I would never have met had I not had the Urban League job,” he observed. By chance a last-minute opening came about in the American Consulate in Lubumbashi, Republic of Zaire. The agency needed a French-speaking officer with African experience. In 1970, he and wife Nina left for the assignment in Zaire. For the next two decades, they travelled to locations around the world for his work as a senior foreign service officer, at the same time serving as exemplar representatives of the U.S.
Over many years, and especially after his retirement in 1990, Mr. Pillsbury served Hotchkiss, including as a trustee from 1997 to 2012. Additional volunteer roles included co-chair of the Centennial Celebration, regional council member, reunion volunteer, event host, and class agent from 2005-2021.
He enriched the School’s educational offerings in many ways, including through the Ambassadors Speakers Series, which he founded in 2008. This annual program brings ambassadors to Hotchkiss, to address the School community, offering informed perspective on international relations and visiting classrooms.
Mr. Pillsbury established funds in his parents’ names, the Philip W. Pillsbury ’20 Scholarship Fund and the Eleanor Bellows Pillsbury Scholarship Fund, and supported the School’s financial aid program. He retained a particular interest in Africa and applauded initiatives that provided educational opportunities in the U.S. for young African students. He also provided early and enthusiastic support for The Hotchkiss School Archives, seeing the necessity of establishing a program and adding staff for the safekeeping and growth of archival materials.
In addition to his service on the Hotchkiss Board of Trustees, he served on the Board of the National Trust for the Humanities and the American Architectural Foundation.
He is survived by his wife, Caroline Hannaford “Nina” Pillsbury; daughters Fendell Pillsbury and Caroline Oliver ’89, and son, Philip III ’91; and nine grandchildren, including Andrew ’20 and Elizabeth Oliver ’22.
Mr. Pillsbury’s family counted several Hotchkiss alumni, including brother-in-law Jule M. Hannaford ’72; cousins Winston Lord ’55 and the late Charles P. Lord ’52, Mark H. Johnston ’06, and Abigail B. Johnston ’07; and nephew Henry A. Pillsbury ’87.
