Donald Hoyt Cox, 84, husband of Carol Wass Cox (deceased), father of Donald Hoyt Cox, Jr. of Londonderry, NH, Stephen Wass Cox of Windham, NH, Betsey Stebbins Cox-Buteau of Hollis, NH, and Andrew Wheaton Cox of Pelham, AL, passed away on March 3, 2015. Don was raised in Newtonville, MA, attended Newton High School where he made several lifelong friends and met his wife to be of 63 years. While there, he was class president, editor of the school newspaper, and an Eagle Scout. He left Newtonville to attend Dartmouth College. He graduated in 1951 as a Magna Cum Laude, a Phi Beta Cappan, and was a member of the Phi Delta Fraternity about which he had many stories to tell. Don and Carol were married on New Year’s Eve, 1950, his senior year. He continued at Dartmouth in the 3/2 program for Tuck School of Business graduating with his Masters in Business Administration in 1952. After graduation, he went to work as a salesman for the Kendall Corporation and the couple and first two sons lived in Leavittown, on Long Island where he used to tell us that every house looked the same. They quickly were resettled to Kirkwood, Missouri for a short time where their daughter was born. Then they moved back east to Walpole, MA where the last of their four children was born. In the prime of their lives together, they built a reproduction antique cape on seven acres in Topsfield, MA and lived there from 1961 to 1981. During that time, Don and Carol raised their children, built a summer cottage in Madison, NH, owned several sailboats, and shepherded numerous animals from the usual dogs and cats to fish, guinea pigs, sheep, chickens, and even a steer named aptly, “Taurus.” Don created a shooting range in the backyard and a ski hill in the woods on their property for the family to enjoy.
He was among the founding members of the North Shore Technical High School School Board who built the school in the 1970s. Don continued to travel frequently in his work. He was in sales at TracerLab, President of Geodata Systems, purchased Graves Skis manufacturing as a side adventure, and finally purchased his own electronics distribution company, A. W. Mayer, Company. The company was located on Boylston Street near the Prudential Building in Boston. He soon moved the company to Newton and then to Billerica where he finally sold it and retired from business. Outside of work, he was a member of the South Nashua Rotary Club where he was a Paul Harris Fellow and was a member of the Hollis Historical Society. He was also a member of the Toastmasters International achieving the rank of Able Toastmaster. Now retired and with the children grown and gone, Don ran the Executive Education Program at Northeastern University bringing groups of business executives from the Soviet Union and afterward to the U.S. to learn how to run their businesses in a free market system. This chapter in his life led Don to return to Dartmouth again to study Russian, for him and Carol to visit Russia, the Ukraine, and ultimately spend several months in Khazakstan in 1996 working for the International Executive Service Corps where Don had to convince a company to actually raise its prices to become competitive. His efforts were successful and the company grew. The company management and Don remained friends for many years. Don and Carol then bought a home in Florida and became snowbirds between their cottage in Wakefield, NH and Englewood, FL while taking several trips with Elder Hostel. Eventually, Don and Carol spent their last several years as residents of The Birches in Concord, NH.
Don will be cremated and his ashes will be buried alongside his beloved Carol’s in the family plot at the Pillsbury Cemetery in Londonderry, NH. Donations in Don’s name to the Alzheimer’s Foundation of America are encouraged. Contact family members for service information.