William V. Tripp III, lawyer immersed in charity work

“Letters were not only an important part of his work,’’ said his daughter, Debbie Budden of Boston. “My brother, my mother, and I have been on the receiving end of beautifully written letters. He was an incredibly private person but was able to put down his thoughts in words with great clarity. He was able to capture a situation, or capture feelings, or capture a mood.’’

To be in Mr. Tripp’s presence was to be swept up in his mood, friends say. Clad in a crisp suit and often sporting a bow tie, he was uniformly congenial and kind - except, perhaps, at certain moments when standing on the opposing side of a tennis net.

Mr. Tripp, who spent more than 40 years guiding families and organizations in financial and legal matters, died Saturday at Massachusetts General Hospital of complications from a brain tumor that was diagnosed six months ago today. He was 71 and had lived for 40 years in Wellesley before moving recently to Brookline.

Musing about his friend from childhood, Dick Chapman mentioned the Prudent Man Rule, which dates to an 1830 Massachusetts court decision that says trustees should manage affairs with the intelligence and discretion they would bring to their own financial matters.

“Bill was a truly prudent man, a Boston fiduciary in the best sense of that word, and a man of absolute integrity,’’ said Chapman, who is chairman of Brookline Bancorp.

“He loved and cared for his clients,’’ said Howard H. Dana Jr., a former associate justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court who has been friends with Mr. Tripp since they attended Cornell University Law School. “If you needed advice of any kind, you would go to Bill, because if he didn’t have the answer, he would tell you who did. That’s the reason his community turned to him whenever they needed someone who could be trusted.’’

The son of a stocks and bonds broker, Mr. Tripp grew up in Chestnut Hill and graduated in 1956 from Deerfield Academy, where he was captain of the cross-country team, ran track, and played hockey.

While spending the summer in Osterville the following year, he was on the beach when he met Roberta Allen, a University of Colorado student who was baby-sitting on Cape Cod. One evening soon after, they were both at a dance at the Wianno Club in Osterville.

“I asked when I was a child when they knew they would be married,’’ their daughter said. “They both said definitely the first time they danced together.’’

They married in 1960, shortly after Mr. Tripp graduated from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., with a bachelor’s in English. He nicknamed her Bobbi and “her feeling about him was that he was a prince,’’ their daughter said.

“He was a gentleman to the core, the type of man who would get up from a table when a woman walked into a room and pull out her chair,’’ she said. “He was also gentle in a way that, when a conversation was going on, he would listen intently and then add a beautiful nugget of clarity.’’

Said Dana: “When I think of Bill, I think of a man who was unfailingly kind in every interaction I ever observed. He was generous and caring and never appeared to be angry or in any way unhappy, even. He just was a very kind man.’’

After Wesleyan, Mr. Tripp spent three years in the Navy as a lieutenant, junior grade, then went to Cornell. He graduated in 1966 with a master’s in business administration and from the law school the following year.

Mr. Tripp joined the Boston firm Sherburne Powers & Needham upon graduation. He began practicing in trusts and estates and stayed for 34 years, the last three after Sherburne Powers & Needham was acquired by the national firm Holland & Knight. He moved in 2001 to the Boston firm Choate Hall & Stewart, then to Nixon Peabody last year.

Having followed in his father’s footsteps by attending Wesleyan, Mr. Tripp also immersed himself in charities associated with the Episcopal church. He was a trustee of the Church Home Society, which works with youths; the Boston Episcopal Charitable Society, which provides financial aid to those in need; and Sherrill House, a not-for-profit nursing and rehabilitation center.

“Bill was a person without guile,’’ the Rev. Thomas B. Kennedy, chairman of Sherrill House, wrote in a tribute. “He sought no greater good than that defined by the mission of the institution he was serving. He was a person of uncompromising integrity. It was his hallmark.’’

While Mr. Tripp also took time to serve on boards - he was an overseer for Children’s Hospital in Boston and a director for Brookline Bancorp - he invested his best hours with family, including traveling to see his son, Tim, of Bozeman, Mont., for sojourns in the wilderness there and in Wyoming.

Mr. Tripp also read deeply and often, choosing books from his expansive library, and he traveled with his wife to art galleries throughout New England.

“The greatest love of my father’s life, though, was not athletics, work, literature, or art, but my mother,’’ their daughter wrote in a tribute. “It was a stroke of beautiful fate that she, a Colorado girl, and my dad, a New England boy, met on a Cape Cod beach back in 1957. Their life together for 50 years was, quite honestly, a great love affair. . . . One of their favorite things to do of late was to go for long walks together, and then find a really good restaurant in which to share a meal. They have enjoyed every moment together.’’

In addition to his wife, daughter, and son, Mr. Tripp leaves two sisters, Eleanor November of Scarsdale, N.Y., and Francie Hawkey of Wellesley; a brother, Jim of New York City; and four grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. today in Church of the Redeemer in Newton. Burial is private.