George Labalme Jr.
George Labalme Jr. was a soldier, an industrial designer, and a philanthropist.
Early life and education
Labalme was born in Paris on November 17, 1927 and lived there until 1939 when he moved with his family to New York City.After graduating from Rumsey Hall School and Hotchkiss School, he was drafted into the U. S. Army in 1946, serving first at Fort McClellan, Alabama. He was deployed with the occupation forces in Tokyo until 1947. He served as an honor guard for General Douglas MacArthur. He then attended Kenyon College on the GI Bill where he met and became lifelong friends with E. L. Doctorow.
He married Patricia Hochschild Labalme. Their path to matrimony was long and convoluted: they first met briefly in 1939 as 12-year olds when their respective families vacationed together at Eagle Nest camp. They did not see each other again until their twenties, when she was a graduate student at Harvard. Their first attempt at a wedding was cancelled, but the second, on the anniversary of D-Day, June 6, 1958, was completed. They subsequently had four children together: Jenny, Henry, Lisa, and Victoria. They were married until Patricia's death in 2002.