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It was a sunny morning, 1 March 1910, when a group of eager youths marched two-by-two through the sallyport into Area of Old Barrack. I have always considered it one of the luckiest days of my life to have been beside Fenn on that day and to have been assigned his roommate. We remained “wives” the entire four years and more. I knew well the boy and the man.</div>
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Being an Army boy, <em>George Fenn Lewis</em> lived his youth mostly on Army posts. His father, Colonel Isaac Newton Lewis, was graduated from the Academy in the Class of 1884, an inventive genius, with the Lewis machinegun as one of his outstanding accomplishments. Fenn, with a brother and two sisters, was raised in an atmosphere of gentle dignity, family love and loyalty, and of rigid uprightness. This background moulded the man.</div>
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As a cadet, Fenn had a well-rounded education. He was a fine scholar who studied hard, but was not a grind. He graduated 12th in his Class and was commissioned in the Engineer Corps. Early in his cadet days he acquired the nickname of “Ananias” because of his propensity to tell tall stories with a straight face—but an elusive twinkle in his eyes. His sense of humor was always with him, and endeared him to his classmates, although at times it ran afoul the precepts of the regulations, with the normally expected results.</div>
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Fenn never complained, and accepted the buffets of fate in his stride. He had a deep disappointment in his athletic career which hurt him, but even then he accepted the disappointment without rancor. He was a splendid fencer with foil and broadsword, being on the fencing squad every year. He was an undoubted selection for the Academy team, when intercollegiate fencing competition suddenly was abolished. Although Fenn won the Academy Fencing Championship as a Second Classman, his dream of the coveted “A” could not be realized.</div>
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Fenn was both serious and gay. In his studies, athletics, and class activities, his serious application to every problem that confronted him won him honors and the admiration of his classmates. The lighter side of his nature earned him the right to add "BA” and “AB” after his name, and at the same time. it earned him the affection of all of us.</div>
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Upon being graduated from the Military Academy on 12 June 1914, Fenn was commissioned a second lieutenant, Corps of Engineers. He spent the first nine months of his commissioned service at Washington Barracks, and during the remainder of 1915, his especial work was progressive military map work at Fort Belvoir, Plattsburg, and other points in New York and Connecticut. In 1916 he started the year on survey work near El Paso, Tex., and then was assigned to the Punitive Expedition into Mexico. In August he was forced to leave command of his Section for hospitalization at Colonia Dublan, Mexico. He was successively transferred to the Base Hospital at Columbus, N. Mex., and to the Base Hospital at Fort Bliss. By the early part of September, he was out of the hospital and assigned as a student at the Engineer School, but again was hospitalized at Walter Reed for a few weeks. He went back to duty for a while at Washington Barracks.</div>
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He got his captaincy in May 1917, and became a temporary major in August of the same year. In August 1917, he went to France with the AEF, commanding an Engineer company, did a stint as instructor with the Engineer Section, I Corps School, and in January 1918, he was assigned to command a battalion with the 1st Division. After frontline duty in Menil-la-Tour Sector and the Montdidier Sector, Fenn was transferred in July 1918 to GHQ, AEF, where he took a special course at the Army Engineer School and served a short time in the office of the Chief of Engineers.</div>
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He returned to the United States in August 1918,<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>and was assigned as an instructor, Engineer Officers Training School at Camp Humphreys, Va. He was promoted to lieutenant colonel in October 1918, and stayed on at Camp Humphreys until he resigned 12 April 1919.</div>
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Back into the Service in 1941, Fenn received his colonelcy 1 February, and served in the Air Transport Command as assistant chief of staff for supplies and service until April 1944. In recognition of work well done, he was awarded the Legion of Merit in 1944.</div>
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Fenn’s civilian professional career was a most interesting one, progressing from smaller beginnings to really great accomplishments in very important fields. From manufacturing, his activities slowly changed to accounting and operational efficiency, with his technical engineering mind responsible for his successes. He left the Army right after World War I, and served as treasurer, president and treasurer, general manager and treasurer, etc., of various manufacturing concerns until 1938. It was then that his accumulated experiences came into use. The J. G. White Engineering Corporation called him in for efficiency problems. Among his outstanding jobs were the establishing of depreciation rates and reserve accounting of all of the Radio Corporation of America companies; establishment of the useful life periods for all properties of the Detroit Edison Company; reorganization of the administration of the New York Zoological Society. In 1939 Fenn was made assistant general manager and comptroller of the J. G. White Public Works project in Haiti. With the coming of World War II, Fenn left his civilian pursuits, and went back into military service.</div>
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After World War II, Fenn returned to commercial activities for four years as president of the Camillus Cutlery Company, with the assigned objective of finishing war contracts, putting the company back on a postwar basis, and training executives to succeed him. This was done with a very high degree of success.</div>
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For the next six months or so, Fenn worked as industrial consultant for the Economic Cooperation Administration with headquarters in Paris. His work was in the nature of recommending improvements in manufacturing efficiency, standardization and simplification of the activities of over 70 firms in Western Europe. This was the kind of work Fenn really excelled in.</div>
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His last big job before retiring to live in happiness with his family in Maryland started in August 1952. He was general manager of a joint United States-Canadian National Defense project (Pine Tree), and as such, did a tremendous piece of work in administration leading to operational efficiency. This was a job done under difficult conditions and a fitting climax to a life of continued and successful endeavor.</div>
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During Fenn’s active civilian life, he always found time to assume civic duties. These he never shirked and by helping his community, he became beloved and respected therein. Amongst the many such endeavors he served as commissioner and director of public safety, was for many years a member of the Town Planning Board and also served on the Housing Committee—all in Montclair, N. J.</div>
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Fenn was recovering from an operation in the Memorial Hospital in Easton, Md., but was stricken by a sudden heart attack from which he did not recover. He died on 2 October, just one day before his 71st birthday. With members of his family and some of our classmates present, Fenn was laid to rest in the Old Post Cemetery at the Military Academy.</div>
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Eva Baker and Fenn were married in 1916. The 46 years of married life were happy ones. Their family life was enriched by their two boys, Fenn Jr. and Frank, and their daughter Sibyl, who were brought up in an atmosphere of love and understanding. They went out into life with deep roots of family affection and loyalty. George Fenn, Jr., lives in Austin Tex., with his family, which includes George Fenn Lewis, III. Sibyl Lotterle and her husband live in Schenectady, N. Y., and Frank, with his wife, lives with Eva at the family home in Bozman, Md.</div>
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