Pamela Low; kin's treat inspired creation of Cap'n Crunch flavor

Long before Cap'n Crunch's sugary yellow barrels floated in cereal bowls across the land, Pamela Low got a hint of what was to come while visiting her grandparents.

"Grandma would make this concoction with rice and the sauce that she had; it was a combination of brown sugar and butter," Ms. Low's brother William of Westerville, Ohio, said with a chuckle. "It tasted good, obviously. They'd put it over the rice and eat it as a kind of a treat on Sundays."

Three decades later, Ms. Low drew on the memory of her grandmother's delicacy to create the taste that made Cap'n Crunch a popular breakfast cereal. She died of a lung ailment Friday in New London Hospital, not far from her home on the shore of Messer Pond in New Hampshire. Ms. Low was 79 and had worked in Boston for more than 30 years at the Arthur D. Little consulting firm.

"Growing up at my house, it was Aunt Pam's cereal," said her niece, Karen Waltermeyer of Lewis Center, Ohio.

If, as the headline of an alumni profile in UNH Magazine suggests, Ms. Low was the "mother of Cap'n Crunch," then Luella Low was his grandmother. It was she who whipped up the sweet, gooey mix that inspired Ms. Low as a child when she visited her grandparents in Derry, N.H.

Born in Manchester, N.H., Ms. Low lived with her grandparents for a while after her parents divorced, then moved to Jaffrey, N.H., when her father remarried.

"She was a tomboy," said her brother, who recalled that she was disappointed when an ear ailment and a slight heart problem hampered her participation in sports.

Ms. Low, who often spent summers with her grandparents, graduated from Pinkerton Academy in Derry and went to the University of New Hampshire, graduating in 1951 with a bachelor's degree in microbiology.

Taking a job at Arthur D. Little, she became a flavorist, a scientific connoisseur of the artificial tastes that tempt consumers to return for more. She tinkered with flavors of products such as Almond Joy and Mounds, but her biggest achievement came when Quaker Oats developed a new cereal.

"I developed the flavoring, the coating," she told UNH Magazine in 2002.

Boosted by advertising that featured the Good Ship Guppy and Jean LaFoote the barefoot pirate, Cap'n Crunch became a top presweetened breakfast food for children.

Along the way, Cap'n Crunch also became a touchstone of pop culture. In the movie "The Breakfast Club," Ally Sheedy's goth character makes a sandwich by pouring the cereal and Pixy Stix between two slices of bread. In one episode of "Friends," a ruminative Joey asks Chandler, "You ever realize Cap'n Crunch's eyebrows are actually on his hat?"

There is some disagreement, though, over what the cereal nuggets resemble: treasure chests or slightly-flattened barrels.

Ms. Low was modest about her place in breakfast history, telling UNH Magazine: "Personally, I think it's fun. It's not much. But it's something that I was able to accomplish. Put the flavors together. It showed what you can do."

While at Arthur D. Little, she lived for many years in Wakefield and purchased a summer cottage in New London on Messer Pond. Renovations made it secure for winters, and in 1973 she moved full time to the home she called Pamelot.

"She had that on a big sign over the garage door," her brother said, "which I'm taking back to Columbus, Ohio."

For a decade Ms. Low commuted to Boston, then retired in 1983 after spending her entire career at the consulting firm.

In New London, she was active in the First Baptist Church, volunteered at New London Hospital, and served on the alumni board at the University of New Hampshire, where she established a scholarship in her name for students studying clinical microbiology.

Her home on the pond, meanwhile, became a summer destination for family members. Ms. Low -- still a bit of a tomboy, perhaps -- was an able host for her young nephews and their buddies.

"She was one of a kind," said her nephew Dan Low of Columbus, Ohio. "I would come up here during high school and in college with a group of friends, and she was great to be around. We'd drink beer together."

Sometimes she took the gang to a nearby lake and brought along a big lobster pot for a cookout.

"The lobster feasts were just legendary," he said.

"She was fun, she was wonderful, she was caring, she was generous -- everything you could imagine in an aunt," Waltermeyer said.

Ms. Low shared her home with a series of dogs, notably a Boston terrier named Casey, and a couple of Cap'n Crunch dolls. There usually were boxes of Cap'n Crunch in the house, too, though Ms. Low's hand in its creation did not translate into a lifetime free supply.

"She, like we, had to go out and buy it," her brother said.

Over the years, the popularity of presweetened cereals like Cap'n Crunch has drawn the ire of nutrition- conscious parents who object to the amount of sugar they add to the diet of children.

Ms. Low was unperturbed by the dispute. "I pooh-pooh that," she told UNH Magazine. "Give the kids plain cereal, and see how much sugar they put on it."

In addition to her brother, niece, and nephew, Ms. Low leaves another brother, John of Meredith, N.H.

A service has been held.