Thomas Dunlop Scott

Thomas Dunlop Scott, 95, died at home, surrounded by his family on Sunday, October 28, 2018 in Sarasota Florida. Private memorial services will be followed by interment of his ashes in the Scott family plot at Kensico Cemetery, New York in the spring.

Tom was born in Larchmont New York, on August 4, 1923 to Thomas Dunlop Scott and Katherine MacKinnon (McKean) Scott. Growing up, his grandparents were the center of the large Scottish-American family that included Tom’s two brothers and three cousins. These six boys grew up together as brothers.

Tom graduated from Syracuse University in 1948 with a Bachelor’s degree and then went on to earn a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. The two degrees were obtained over a twenty-year period interrupted by WWII, work and starting a family. He enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1943 and saw action in Europe. After being invalided out during the Battle of the Bulge, he completed his three years of army service as a weapons instructor at West Point.

Back at Syracuse University, he completed his undergraduate degree. The University selected him to be their Syracuse-in-China Representative to West China Union University in Chengdu, China in 1949. He taught history and then literature there until the overthrow of the government by Mao led him, and other foreigners, to be expelled from the country in 1951. His journey out of China is a story in and of itself.

His interest in the Far East led him to take a job with the Asia Foundation in Hong Kong in 1952. In 1954, he returned to the US to marry Mary Denison of Skaneateles, New York. They lived in Hong Kong and Singapore where their two daughters were born. In 1959 they returned to the US and Tom finished his long relationship with Syracuse University by earning his MPA.

His early work with the Asia Foundation, and his subsequent work with the Peace Corps in its infancy, the Foreign Policy Association, and the Ford Foundation (that took him to the Middle East and East Africa), was aimed at supporting people’s efforts to improve their own lives. His last job in International Programs in the State University of New York allowed him to merge his interest in the world with his love of education.

In 1989, he retired and he and Mary moved to Venice, Florida. His retirement years gave him the opportunity to enjoy his love of opera, birdwatching and traveling with his wife, and reading widely and deeply.

Throughout his life, Tom was an active volunteer. He was a member of both the Hong Kong and Singapore Junior Chamber of Commerce and became a JC Senator. In Maryland he was active in the civil rights movement. In retirement he served a term as President of the Venice Opera Guild and he and Mary produced the organization’s newsletter for many years.

Tom will be sorely missed. He will be remembered for his love of family and his generosity, quick wit, marvelous sense of humor and his never-ending intellectual curiosity about the world and the people in it.

He is survived by his wife of 63 years, Mary D. Scott, his two daughters: Helen Margaret Scott and her husband George Barnett; Katherine MacKinnon Scott and her husband Peter Hanson; his grandchildren, Denison S. Ryan, Charlotte Wolbrodt, Nathan Barnett and Katie R. Hampton, and his three great grandchildren: Morgaine, Vivianna and Theo.