Prescott S. Bush Jr. ’44, brother of former President George H.W. Bush ’48 and uncle of former President George W. Bush ‘68, died Wednesday in Hingham, Mass., due to long illness, The Associated Press reported. He was 87.
Bush, a Whiffenpoof who graduated from Silliman College and a retired insurance executive, worked for Pan Am Airways in Brazil after graduating Yale to help construct airfields there. After retiring from Johnson & Higgins, a Wall Street insurance firm where he was a partner, Bush took on work as a consultant and is credited with having introduced many American companies to China by founding the United States-China Chamber of Commerce in 1993.
In addition to being a prominent Connecticut politician throughout the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, Bush was a classical music enthusiast and an avid golfer. He was the driving force behind the design and construction of the Shanghai Country Club and “loved life, family and friends and lived with a spirit of abundance,” according to a statement from the Keohene Funeral Home.
He is survived by his wife, Elizabeth, son, James, daughter, Kelsey Bush-Nadeau, and six grandchildren.
A memorial service is planned for next Wednesday at Christ Church in Greenwich at noon.
Correction: June 25, 2010
An earlier version of this article mistakenly reported that Prescott Bush Jr. was a member of the Skull and Bones class that is purported to have exhumed the remains of the Apache chieftain Geronimo and transported them to the society’s tomb on High Street. In fact, that was Prescott Bush Sr.