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MEMORIAL ARTICLE
Published Assembly Sep '87
Martin Fish Zorn No.15897 Class of !946
Died 12 March 1986 in New York City, New York, aged 60 years.
Interment: Cedar Park, Paramus, New Jersey |
Martin Fish Zorn was born in Brooklyn. New York
on 20 November 1925, the son of Frederick and Lillian Fish Zorn.
His father, a noted attorney, was president of his class at City
College and founder of the college newspaper. Marty grew up in
Brooklyn and was active and able in all sports from earliest
childhood. He attended New York City public schools. and was
a member of the first graduating class of Midwood High School
in Brooklyn, where he was voted the Best All Around Boy of his
class. He served as chief justice, was on the student council,
and was elected to the Honor Society. He played golf and baseball
for Midwood. He always wanted to attend West Point and worked
harder to qualify than he ever did for anything else in his life.
He entered West Point immediately following his high school graduation.
His experiences as a cadet in C-2 and as a young
officer reinforced what he had been taught by his parents and
helped him to become a much more impressive person. He developed
a stubborn determination to be the best he could possibly he,
and West Point taught him the self-discipline he needed to achieve
this goal. West Point also honed and polished his social skills
and taught him how to exercise authority. The ideals of West
Point were not so different from the ideals of his parents, and
each reinforced the other in Marty's development. Marty was very
much a product of West Point. He was the quintessential Honorable
Gentleman. His belief was that the means as well as the ends
must be honorable, and anything else was unacceptable to him.
His yearbook said, "His jovial manner and ease of making
friends will always be remembered. . . . He is a real man for
all his youth."
He was commissioned in the Artillery and attended
officers Basic Course at the Artillery School at Fort Sill and
Fort Bliss. In his last year at West Point he came in contact
with World War II combat veterans who were entering the Academy
as cadets. To exercise authority over them he volunteered for
Jump School at Fort Benning, Georgia to assure himself that his
courage was equal to any challenge. Afterwards he arrived in
Yokohama, Japan in 1948 to an uproarious welcome by his classmates
who gave him a great sendoff to his post as a member of the military
government team at Fukui City. While there a great earthquake
leveled the city, but he escaped unharmed by jumping out of a
second story window of a collapsing building.
Assigned back to the States in 1950, he resigned
his commission and joined Imperial Schrade Corporation as sales
representative for Latin America. His talent and determination
propelled him upward, and in 1983 he was elected president of
his company, now the largest manufacturer of cutlery in the USA.
In 1981 he was elected to the Board of Directors of The National
Housewares Manufacturers Association. He was named vice-president
in 1984 and was slated to be president in 1986.
He met and married Penny Shapiro, daughter of Judge
and Mrs. Maxwell Shapiro, in 1954. They had two daughters. Lynn
(Dartmouth '77) and Robin (Brown '80). Penny and Marty were very
devoted to one another and inseparable. Their picnics at the
Saturday football games were renowned among their friends and
his classmates. Marty continued his love of sports and skied
all over Europe and North America. He was a member of the Harmonie
Club, New York and Century Country Club, Purchase, New York.
While making plans for his daughter's wedding, he was diagnosed
as having incurable cancer. In spite of this, he was determined
to give the bride away which he did in a moving ceremony on 1
March 1986. He died less than two weeks later, mourned by all
who knew and loved him. It was an honor and a joy to have spent
32 years with Marty. He was my best friend.
His courage and gallantry were always evident,
but never more so than in his last days.
Penny S. Zorn
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