Stanton Wesley Putnam dies at 80; committed to social issues

Stanton Wesley Putnam, a 12th-generation descendant of one of the first families to settle Sutton, ''was a spiritual man who really believed in angels,'' said the Rev. David Shepherd King.

Stanton Wesley Putnam, a 12th-generation descendant of one of the first families to settle Sutton, a rural town of dairy and horse farms in Central Massachusetts, died Aug. 27 at Youville Hospital in Cambridge of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. He was 80.

Mr. Putnam was a direct descendant of General Rufus Putnam, a colonial officer during the French and Indian War, and of the Revolutionary War hero General Israel Putnam. But none of this ancestral pedigree turned Mr. Putnam's head, and he spent most of his life quietly helping others, protesting wars and other acts he saw as travesties of the human condition.

"Stanton was a spiritual man who really believed in angels," said the Rev. David Shepherd King, a Congregational minister, who married Mr. Putnam last year after a partnership of more than 40 years.

Mr. Putnam had a wide variety of work experience, King said, but no one career.

He worked for Raytheon Corp. in Wayland and Portsmouth, R.I., writing equipment manuals. He also had a job with the Massachusetts Department of Revenue, tracking down delinquent payers - a position some of his friends thought was out of character.

"I always wondered how such a kind and generous man was able to harass people for money," recalled the Rev. Elinor Yeo of Newton, a friend of 40 years. "Stanton was a very delightful person, debonair and smart and just wonderful to people, and very committed to social issues."

Mr. Putnam was born in Douglas, in the neighborhood known as Old Douglas, to Stanton Darling and Doris M. (Keith) Putnam. He grew up in the former parsonage of the Douglas Congregational Church where he was baptized and confirmed and was an active member for many years.

After graduating from Douglas High School in 1946, he joined the Army and was sent to serve in the headquarters staff of the First Army in Yokohama during the US occupation of Japan. Returning to the United States in 1948, Mr. Putnam took a year's postgraduate course at the Cascadilla School in Ithaca, N.Y.

Back in Massachusetts, he worked for a time in the office of the Whitin Machine Works, in Whitinsville, and first met King, who is also a 12th-generation member of a Sutton family. They did not become partners until 18 years later.

Mr. Putnam took a job at Raytheon in the early 1950s and left in 1966 because he was "deeply troubled by the Vietnam War and did not want to work for a company that earned their money from warfare" through defense contracts, King said.

When they bought a house in Amherst while King was chaplain for Amherst College and an interim pastor at Smith College in Northampton, Mr. Putnam took a job at Lauriat's bookstore in Northampton.

While in Amherst, Mr. Putnam worked on student-life issues as liaison between the dean and students at the University of Massachusetts. Job changes by King took them to Springfield and then to Hartford, where Mr. Putnam worked with King in ecumenical elder and youth services.

In Hartford, King said, Mr. Putnam became concerned by the growing epidemic in drug and alcohol use, which led him to train as a counselor in the state's Department of Mental Health. He served in a residential facility in Meriden and later became executive director of the Wethersfield Avenue Service Center in Hartford.

When Mr. Putnam and King moved to Boston in 1981, they settled in the South End. Mr. Putnam worked on the Dukakis presidential campaign and for the Revenue Department, the job from which he retired.

He joined the Episcopal church in 1984. The couple moved to another Boston residence three years ago.

Mr. Putnam did not let failing health stop him, friends said, and he never complained.

A lover of the ocean, another part of him belonged on Cape Cod, where his sister, Donna Macomber, and her husband live in Orleans.

For a time, he worked with them in their real estate firm and restored a small house in North Truro as a vacation home.

"Uncle Stanton had an enthusiasm for life, not just for his life but for your life," said his nephew, Putnam Macomber of Eastham. "He was the type of guy who was always interested in what you were doing."

Peter Yeo of Chevy Chase, Md., the son of Elinor Yeo, said he had known Mr. Putnam his whole life because of his parents' friendship with King.

"Stanton was always the life of the party, a wonderful man and a wonderful conversationalist," said Yeo, who works on the staff of the US House of Representatives. "He was witty, funny, and told amusing stories."

"I believe, that David and Stanton were really brave guys living in an alternative style before it was acceptable," Yeo said.

A funeral service will be held today at 2 p.m. at Trinity Church, Copley Square. Another service will he held tomorrow at 2 p.m. at the First Congregational Church in Sutton.