Sumner Gerard

Sumner Gerard Jr. (July 15, 1916 – February 24, 2005) was an American businessman, politician, and diplomat. Born in New York to a prominent family, Gerard attended Groton School and Trinity College, Cambridge. After serving in the army, navy, and Marine Corps during World War II, he moved to Montana and became involved in business, including mining and ranching, and politics.

During the 1950s and 1960s, he was a member of both the Montana House of Representatives and the Montana Senate, serving as Republican minority leader in both. In 1974, President Richard Nixon appointed him United States Ambassador to Jamaica, a position he held through the administration of President Gerald Ford, leaving in 1977. He then moved to Florida, serving as an adjunct professor of marine archaeology at the University of Miami and sponsoring and participating in underwater archaeology expeditions. He died in 2005 in Vero Beach, Florida, aged 88.

Early life and education Gerard was born in Melville, New York, a hamlet in the Long Island town of Huntington. Born to Sumner Gerard and Helen Coster, he had two brothers.

His paternal ancestors, the Gerards, were French Huguenots who emigrated to New York in 1776 after several generations in Scotland. Gerard Avenue in The Bronx is named for them.

Gerard graduated from the Groton School, a private boarding secondary school in Groton, Massachusetts. He started out as a buck private in the Army Air Corps, spent time as a parachutist, and ended his service four years later as an infantry captain of intelligence in the Marines. He began studying ranching, and in 1947 toured several western states, deciding on Montana.

On December 17, 1959, Gerard announced his campaign for the Republican nomination for the United States Senate, and said:

[I am] convinced that Montana must look and think ahead, or we will forfeit our potential. I intend to file for nomination to the U.S. Senate with the hope that Montana will send new blood with a fresh outlook to Washington to best represent all Montanans." He won the election, serving in the Senate from 1962 to 1966. In 1969, the Nixon administration sent him to Rome, Italy, as a delegate to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. On March 22, 1974, President Richard Nixon appointed him United States Ambassador to Jamaica, and he presented credentials on June 4, 1974.

Later career After leaving his ambassadorship, Gerard relocated to Florida from New Jersey. He was an active benefactor of marine biology and a frequent sponsor of underwater archaeological expeditions and in 1977 became an adjunct professor of maritime archaeology at the University of Miami.

Personal life Gerard was married twice: first in 1944 to Louise Taft Grosvenor, a daughter of Thelma Cudlipp and granddaughter of Edwin A. Grosvenor, before divorcing in 1966, and next to Teresa Dabrowska, a native of Warsaw, Poland, whom he married in the 1960s and divorced in 2004. He had five children with his first wife: Jenny, Molly, Helen, Anne, and Sumner.

Gerard died of natural causes in a hospital in Vero Beach, Florida, on February 24, 2005. A memorial service was held at the Smithsonian Marine Station in Fort Pierce, Florida, on March 1, before an afternoon funeral service at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Manhattan on March 3.