Investment manager, lover of jazz, lifelong NY Yankees fan
Charles Brush. (Courtesy photo)
On Oct. 1, 2024, Charles Y. Brush died at the home of his daughter, Kim, and her husband, Jeff Schwarz, in Harvard of laryngeal cancer a few days before his 95th birthday.
Born in Burlington, Vermont, on Oct. 6, 1929, he grew up on Lincoln Avenue, Rutland, Vermont with his parents, Nina (Young) and Fletcher E. Brush, and his sister, Janet.
Besides his daughter, he leaves behind his sons, Peter (Libby Haynes) of Hartford, Connecticut, and Andrew (Stephanie) of Jupiter, Florida, and sister Janet Brush (Palm City, Florida); five grandchildren, Eric Schwarz, Drew Schwarz, Jessica Surtees, Eleanor Brush Harris, and Will Schwarz; along with six great-grandchildren. He was predeceased by his beloved wife of 63 years, Anne (Preston).
Charles graduated from Rutland High School in 1947, where he played starting guard for the 1947 state champion basketball team. Before serving as a fireman in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War, he had a variety of jobs including working as a fireman on the Rutland Railroad and as a traveling salesman for Tuttle Law Print.
After the Navy, Charles studied economics at Middlebury College, graduating in 1957.
His career in the investment business began at Smith Barney in Albany, but included work in a variety of settings including managing the pension fund at the ILGWU in New York City; managing the endowment fund at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York; managing the investment portfolio at National Life Insurance Co., Montpelier, Vermont; and finally as VP Investments at AVCO Corp, Greenwich, Connecticut, from which he retired in 1986.
In 1953 Charles married his high school sweetheart, Anne Preston. They were married until her death in 2016. After many relocations around the northeast, in 1985 they settled for good in Stuart, Florida, where he became a scratch golfer and an avid swimmer.
He was not a religious person, but he had faith in the order of things. A child of the Depression, he was keenly aware of the fragility of that order, especially financial insecurity. While taking great pleasure in life, he was first a man of duty to his family and friends. He was grateful to have grown up in prewar Rutland, Vermont, and was a patriotic American. He was very well informed about current events, particularly the movement of markets. He was a great conversationalist with a wonderful sense of humor. A realist, he nonetheless was the eternal optimist who was cheerful by disposition and ethical commitment.
Charles was a lifelong fan of the New York Yankees, a collector of New Yorker magazine covers and cartoons, and a lover of music, especially jazz.
There will be a private burial at Evergreen Cemetery, Rutland, Vermont.
While the family mourns his passing, they are grateful for his life and will strive to live according to his perennial recommendation to “be of good cheer.”