Gurney Genealogy Library Updated 15 July 2026 by Allen Gurney

Lester Sawyer Gurney III (1923-2011)

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Springfield-born, Wellesley Hills-raised power engineer, wartime Signal Corps officer in the Pacific, and father of Lester Hayes Gurney.

Born
10 June 1923, Springfield, Massachusetts; raised in Wellesley Hills. 1
Died
19 December 2011. 2
Education / Military
Norwich University civil-engineering cadet, September 1941 to March 1943, leaving in his junior year for the Army; commissioned a Signal Corps second lieutenant in November 1944; served as a first lieutenant with the 536th Signal Heavy Construction Company in the Western Pacific, separating in September 1946. 3
Occupation
Power engineer, remembered in family evidence for a long McGraw Edison career in New Jersey. 4
Marriage(s)
Edith Walberg Scott - married 23 November 1942, Manhattan, New York City; a New Yorker who trained at the New York Stock Exchange Institute before the war, and mother of Lester Hayes Gurney (G2). Died 1963. 5
Dorothy Lillian Hoben - married 26 June 1965, Elizabeth, New Jersey; born at New Rochelle, New York, and long a manufacturer's executive secretary in Cranford. Died Christmas Day 1994. 6
Elizabeth Stettler Walker - married 25 November 1995, Chatham, New Jersey; a Morris County schoolteacher and musician, and widow of Alan Banham Walker of Cambridge, England. Died 2013. 12

Highlights

  • Born in Springfield, raised in Wellesley Hills. A Springfield city-clerk certificate records his birth on 10 June 1923 to Lester and Ethel (Hayes) Gurney; Wellesley Hills was the family home of his boyhood. 1
  • He ran telephone-line construction across liberated Luzon. As a Signal Corps outside-plant officer with the 536th Signal Heavy Construction Company, he directed the building and maintenance of aerial and underground telephone cable in the Philippines, supervising 75 enlisted men, Japanese prisoner-of-war labor, and 75 civilian linemen and cable splicers. 8
  • He was absent overseas at the birth of G2. Lester Hayes Gurney was born 16 November 1945 at St. Vincent's Hospital in New York City while his father was serving in the Pacific. 7
  • The engineering line ran straight through him. Before the war he laid out transmission lines and submarine cable as an assistant construction engineer for the New England Power Company in Boston — his own father's firm — and he went on to a long career as a power engineer with McGraw Edison in New Jersey. 94
  • He carried the family's Masonic tradition into Rhode Island. By December 1955 he was junior deacon of St. Alban's Lodge No. 6 in Bristol, Rhode Island — one of the five generations of Gurney Freemasons remembered at his son's death. 10

Children

Name Dates Mother Notes
Lester Hayes Gurney1945-2025Edith Walberg ScottG2 in the direct line; born 16 November 1945 at St. Vincent's Hospital, New York City, while his father was stationed at Manila. 7

Narrative

Lester Sawyer Gurney III stands at the hinge between the Massachusetts and New York engineering world of his father and the Indiana utility career of his son. He was born in Springfield, Massachusetts, on 10 June 1923, the son of Lester and Ethel June (Hayes) Gurney, and grew up in the family home at Wellesley Hills, where the 1940 federal census found him at sixteen, a son in his parents' household. 15 In September 1941 he entered Norwich University in Vermont — the oldest private military college in the United States and the first American college to teach civil engineering 19 — as a civil-engineering cadet, completed two years in the upper third of his class, rose to Cadet Sergeant in the Signal Corps, and left in March 1943 — partway through his junior year — to enter the Army. 13

His war took him from a New Jersey training post to the far side of the Pacific. He served first as an enlisted man, training in very-high-frequency radio repair, then passed through Signal Corps Officer Candidate School at Fort Monmouth and was commissioned a second lieutenant in November 1944. As a first lieutenant and telephone-and-telegraph outside-plant officer with the 536th Signal Heavy Construction Company, Army Forces Western Pacific, he was responsible for the design, construction, and maintenance of aerial and underground telephone cable on Luzon, in the Philippines, directing a workforce of 75 enlisted men, Japanese prisoner-of-war labor, and 75 civilian linemen and cable splicers; before shipping overseas he had trained line crews at Fort Dix. He came home among his decorations the Asiatic-Pacific and Philippine Liberation ribbons, and separated from active service in September 1946. 8

Engineering framed the rest of his life. Even before the war, in 1942, he had worked as an assistant construction engineer for the New England Power Company in Boston — the very firm his father served for thirty-five years — laying out power-transmission lines and underground and submarine cable, work strikingly close to the military telephone construction he would later direct. He kept building on it afterward, earning top marks in electrical-machinery and circuits courses at Worcester Junior College's evening division in 1948, and family memory places the bulk of his career with McGraw Edison in New Jersey — the electrical-equipment manufacturer formed in 1957 by the merger of the McGraw Electric Company with Thomas A. Edison's New Jersey company, whose power-systems works built transformers and switchgear for the electric utilities. 20 He is thus the middle link in three generations of power engineers, between his father's New England Power career and his son's later work at Indiana and Michigan Electric. 94

For a stretch of the late 1940s and 1950s the family lived at Bristol, Rhode Island, on Sowams Road, where Lester and his first wife Edith were woven into village life: the couple were elected presidents of the Co-Mar-Co Society, Edith hosted the Bayberry Garden Club and chaired a Parent-Teacher Association school-registration drive, and Lester served as junior deacon of St. Alban's Lodge No. 6 — the Masonic thread that runs through five Gurney generations. From Rhode Island the family moved to New Jersey, where Chatham, in Morris County, was Lester's home from the 1970s into the late 1990s. 16 He had married his first wife, Edith Walberg Scott, in Manhattan on 23 November 1942; a New Yorker by birth, she had trained at the New York Stock Exchange Institute, completing its course for "customers' men" — the brokers who handled client accounts — in June 1939, and worked in foreign-exchange trading until the war closed that market. After Edith's death in 1963 he married Dorothy Lillian Hoben at Elizabeth, New Jersey, on 26 June 1965; born at New Rochelle, New York, Dorothy was secretary to the president of an electrical-equipment manufacturer in Cranford and died on Christmas Day 1994. 11517618

After Dorothy's death he married a third time, to Elizabeth Stettler Walker — a lifelong Morris County schoolteacher and an accomplished pianist, organist, and violinist, and the widow of Alan Banham Walker of Cambridge, England 13 — at Chatham, New Jersey, on 25 November 1995. 1214 The couple settled at the Heath Village retirement community in Washington Township, where, after sixteen years of marriage, Lester died in 2011. 13

Citations

  1. Springfield, Massachusetts, City Clerk birth certification (issued 14 February 1929) recording Lester Gurney's birth at Springfield on 10 June 1923 to Lester and Ethel J. Hayes; Wellesley Hills childhood-home context from the Gurney family handwritten notes, Page 5 ("Born June 10, 1923 Wellesley Hills, MA"). Source IDs: gurney-family-papers-g3-to-g2-certificates-clippings; gurney-family-handwritten-notes-1963. Back
  2. Gurney family handwritten notes, Page 5 transcription: "Died Dec 19, 2011." Source ID: gurney-family-handwritten-notes-1963. Back
  3. Norwich University enrollment certificate and dean's recommendation letter (7 December 1943): entry September 1941, two years of Civil Engineering in the upper third of the class, promotion to Cadet Sergeant in the Signal Corps, departure 27 March 1943; Eastern Signal Corps Training Center temporary appointment as Second Lieutenant effective 25 November 1944 (Fort Monmouth); Army of the United States Certificate of Service, 536 Signal Heavy Construction Company, Army Forces Western Pacific, 25 November 1944 to 8 September 1946. Dana Gurney's family notes separately recall a June or July 1944 commission, kept as family memory. Source IDs: gurney-family-papers-g3-to-g2-certificates-clippings; gurney-family-handwritten-notes-1963. Back
  4. Gurney family handwritten notes, revised findings memorandum v3, recording Allen Gurney family evidence that G3 spent most of his career with McGraw Edison in New Jersey. Source ID: gurney-family-handwritten-notes-1963. Back
  5. New York City certificate of marriage: Lester Gurney III and Edith W. Scott, married 23 November 1942 in the Borough of Manhattan before Justice Emil W. Haas, license no. 29487. Source ID: gurney-family-papers-g3-to-g2-certificates-clippings. Back
  6. Wedding invitation and marriage certificate: Lester Gurney III of Chatham, New Jersey, and Dorothy Lillian Hoben of Elizabeth, New Jersey, married 26 June 1965 at Westminster Presbyterian Church, Elizabeth (minister Robert W. Ross; witness Lester H. Gurney); a Gurney family handwritten note gives a variant 6 June 1965 and an uncertain Haben/Haden surname. Source IDs: gurney-family-papers-g3-to-g2-certificates-clippings; gurney-family-handwritten-notes-1963. Back
  7. Gurney family handwritten notes, Page 5 transcription: G3 was with the 536th Signal Heavy Construction Company "when Lester Hayes Gurney was born 11-16-45 / in NY City, St Vincent's Hospital." Source ID: gurney-family-handwritten-notes-1963. Back
  8. Army of the United States Separation Qualification Record for Lester Gurney III, 1st Lt., Telephone & Telegraph Officer (Outside Plant): responsibility for design, construction, and maintenance of open-wire and cable telephone plant on Luzon, supervising 75 enlisted men, Japanese prisoner-of-war labor, and 75 civilian linemen and cable splicers, with line-construction training duty at Fort Dix before overseas service; decorations include the Asiatic-Pacific Theater Ribbon and Philippine Liberation Ribbon. Source ID: gurney-family-papers-g3-to-g2-certificates-clippings. Back
  9. Separation Qualification Record civilian-occupation entry recording Lester Gurney III as an assistant construction engineer with the New England Power Company, Boston (1942), responsible for layout and construction of transmission lines and underground and submarine cable; Worcester Junior College evening-division grade reports (terms ending 31 January and 11 June 1948) for electrical-machinery and circuits courses; McGraw Edison career from the Gurney family handwritten notes. Source IDs: gurney-family-papers-g3-to-g2-certificates-clippings; gurney-family-handwritten-notes-1963. Back
  10. Bristol, Rhode Island, newspaper clipping, "Southwick Master of St. Alban's" (continuation annotated 16 December 1955), naming Lester Gurney III as junior deacon of St. Alban's Lodge No. 6, F. & A.M., at the 153rd annual communication, Masonic Temple, Hope Street, Bristol; First Army discharge order (24 August 1951) giving his residence as Sowams Drive, Bristol. Source ID: gurney-family-papers-g3-to-g2-certificates-clippings. Back
  11. Bristol, Rhode Island, newspaper clippings: "Couples Elected to Club Offices" (Mr. and Mrs. Lester Gurney III elected president of the Co-Mar-Co Society), "Seedman Speaks to Bayb'ry Club" (Bayberry Garden Club meeting at the home of Mrs. Lester Gurney III on Sowams Road), and "Check on New Pupils Begins" (Mrs. Lester Gurney 3rd chairing the Parent-Teacher Association roundup committee). Source ID: gurney-family-papers-g3-to-g2-certificates-clippings. Back
  12. New Jersey, U.S., Marriage Index, 1901-2016 (database, Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2016), bride index entry for Lester Gurney III and Elizabeth L. Stettler, married 25 November 1995 at Chatham, Morris County, New Jersey; certificate no. 0046950; New Jersey State Archives, Trenton, Marriage Indexes (Index Type: Bride; 1995; Surname Range: M-Z). Ancestry record. Source ID: nj-marriage-index-1901-2016. Back
  13. "Elizabeth Stettler Walker Gurney, formerly of Chatham," The Madison Eagle (New Jersey Hills Media Group), 20 June 2013, recording her marriage to Lester Gurney III in 1995, the couple's move to the Heath Village retirement community, and his death in 2011 after sixteen years of marriage; she was a lifelong Morris County schoolteacher and an accomplished pianist, organist, violinist, and chorister, educated at Wheaton College and the New Jersey State Teachers College at Trenton, and the widow of Alan Banham Walker (d. 1980). Obituary. Source ID: elizabeth-stettler-walker-gurney-obituary. Back
  14. "United States, Public Records, 1970-2009," database, FamilySearch, entry for Elizabeth Walker Gurney, 2000, corroborating her use of the Gurney surname after the 1995 marriage. FamilySearch record. Source ID: us-public-records-1970-2009. Back
  15. "United States, Census, 1940," database with images, FamilySearch, entry for Lester Gurney, age 16, a single son in the household of his parents Lester and Ethel Gurney at Wellesley Town (Wellesley Hills), Norfolk County, Massachusetts; 1935 residence "same place"; enumeration district 11-279. FamilySearch record. Source ID: us-census-1940. Back
  16. "United States, Public Records, 1970-2009," database, FamilySearch, entry for Lester L Gurney, 2006, recording New Jersey residences at Chatham, 07928 (February 1975 to November 1999) and Hackettstown, 07840 (February 1997 to October 2006); birth date 10 June 1923; household identifier 51109233. FamilySearch record. Source ID: us-public-records-1970-2009. Back
  17. Gurney family handwritten oral-history notes recording that Edith completed a New York Stock Exchange Institute course for "customers' men" on 8 June 1939 and worked in foreign-exchange trading until the wartime closure of that market ended the position; a Sons of the American Revolution ancestor chart gives her birth as 15 February 1919 at New York, treated here as a derivative variant pending a primary birth record. Source IDs: gurney-family-handwritten-notes-1963; gurney-family-papers-g3-to-g2-certificates-clippings. Back
  18. New York State birth certification naming Dorothy Lillian Hoben, born 20 February 1928 at New Rochelle, Westchester County, New York; New Jersey death certificate recording her death on 25 December 1994 at Morristown, residence at Chatham Borough, Morris County, and occupation as secretary to the president in electrical manufacturing (last employer MultiAmp Corporation, Cranford, New Jersey). Source ID: gurney-family-papers-g3-to-g2-certificates-clippings. Back
  19. "Norwich University," Wikipedia, and the Norwich University history: founded 1819 by Alden Partridge, a former superintendent of West Point; the oldest private military college in the United States, the Department of Defense's recognized "Birthplace of ROTC," and the first private American college to teach civil engineering. Source ID: norwich-university-history. Back
  20. "McGraw-Edison," Wikipedia, with the Eaton / Cooper power-series heritage: the company was formed on 2 January 1957 by the merger of the McGraw Electric Company with Thomas A. Edison, Inc., the Edison firm rooted in West Orange, New Jersey; its power-systems business — the Line Material and Kyle lines of transformers, reclosers, and switchgear — passed to Cooper Power Systems in 1985. Source ID: mcgraw-edison-history. Back