Hugh Putnam, at 90; salesman was a camper at heart

As a young man, Hugh T. Putnam gave his heart to saltwater, sailboats, and ships. Then he met Annie Gallagher at the boys' summer camp her father had founded.

"This would have been Putty's life," she inscribed his copy of "Salt Water Poems and Ballads" by the British writer John Masefield, "for had he not a wife and family the sea might well have claimed him."

Instead, she laid such claim to his affections for 65 years of marriage that even after she died in February Mr. Putnam "kept looking for her, looking for her, looking for her," said their daughter Anne P. Nichols of Sherborn. "He offered a nurse a million dollars last summer if she could find Annie for him."

Mr. Putnam, who helped his wife run South Pond Cabins in Fitzwilliam, N.H., for decades, died of pneumonia Nov. 13 in the Wayland Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Wayland. He was 90.

"His love was the sea," his daughter said. "He never went back to the sea because he married my Mom. He became a woodsman and could be seen forever chopping wood and birding."

Born in Brookline, he grew up in Dedham, where he graduated from Noble and Greenough School before attending Harvard College.

Joining the merchant marine , he sailed on a lumber schooner off Nova Scotia "and he just loved it -- he could always be found in the crow's nest," his daughter said.

Mr. Putnam and Anne Gallagher met while he was a counselor at South Pond Cabins at the base of Mount Monadnock in New Hampshire, and they married at the outset of World War II. During the war Mr. Putnam served in the Navy and was stationed in the United States and Asia.

Initially working with Universal Winding in Rhode Island, Mr. Putnam and his family moved to Milton when he became a salesman for a machine tools company based in Walpole, N.H., and later launched his own company with a partner.

The jobs, however, were always secondary to his family and South Pond Cabins, his family said. Each July and August, Mr. Putnam would arrive at the camp Friday evening, lending his enthusiasm and boating expertise to the campers.

"He absolutely worshiped and adored his Annie and his children and his grandchildren," said his daughter Mary P. Mitchell of Groton. "He put us ahead of work and everything."

"He was an amazing man, so was his wife," said his daughter-in-law, Heather of Milton. "They were a devoted couple, and they were just devoted to the boys. He and his wife really steered the moral compass for hundreds of boys."

With the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Putnam, their children have received many letters from former campers at South Pond Cabins, which was open from 1908 to 1979.

They recalled Mr. Putnam throwing himself into weekends at the camp "often accompanied by a hum or a hymn," his daughter said, reading from one letter. The boys looked forward to his return "for that extra oomph" he brought.

"He tended to be a breath of fresh air when he came in after work on Friday, we had all gotten a little tired of each other by then," said Read Albright of Billerica, a former camper who became a longtime friend of the Putnams.

Though Anne Putnam did not take an official title, she was the camp's leader. That was just fine with Mr. Putnam.

"Dad always let Mom be in the forefront. He wasn't threatened by her at all, and that was a tremendous role model for me," Mitchell said. "And yet, Mom depended on him."

"He was spunky, but he was just a modest fellow and didn't like a lot of attention brought to him," Nichols said.

After the Putnams closed South Pond Cabins, they retired to a two-room schoolhouse in Woodstock, Vt., then spent their final days at Wayland Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, where they had both moved.

Mr. Putnam constantly sang or hummed to himself, usually hymns, Albright wrote in a reminiscence. A few years ago, after attending his last Red Sox game, Mr. Putnam "sang Episcopal hymns the whole way up" when Albright drove him back to South Woodstock.

"He was still singing camp songs up to two days before he died," Nichols said.

In addition to his daughters and daughter-in-law, Mr. Putnam leaves a son, Hugh T. Jr. of Milton; four granddaughters; three grandsons; eight great-granddaughters; and six great-grandsons.

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Monday in St. Michael's Episcopal Church in Milton. Burial will be private.