Chinnery, Lawrence W., Sr. (09/18/1938–06/21/2006). Larry and I met on the first day of Grinnell’s New Student Days in late summer of 1957. We were roommates in the second floor room of Gates Hall over the arched entrance to the men’s residence halls.
Larry’s interest was mathematics. He was a soft-spoken, reserved young man, and he and I enjoyed going together to meetings of the Young Democrats and International Relations Club. On the other
hand, we did not like the upperclassmen’s hazing of freshmen. After two years at Grinnell, he left to work. Later he said that he liked Grinnell’s emphasis on the liberal arts and the low faculty/student ratio while enjoying the “beautiful, quiet campus with a very diverse selection of talented students, well-versed faculty and disciplines.” (In 1968 he received a B.S. in math from the University of Missouri in Kansas City, his home town.)
From 1960 through 1976, Larry was an employee of various corporations that had federal government contracts relating to computers for military intelligence. Behind the scenes during most of this period he was a Navy SEAL, a CIA agent or Naval or Air Force intelligence officer. He parachuted into Vietnam. He was captured by the Viet Cong for nearly three months before escaping and hiking to Cambodia. After another drop into the country, he was captured again, followed by another escape, only to be declared “dead” when a concussion bomb went off near him and to be placed in a body bag. After un-bagging, he recuperated in military hospitals in Japan.
Other accomplishments during this period of working on government contracts were developing aspects of the Apollo program for NASA and computer programs for the Strategic Air Command.
In 1976 he started one of the first retail computer stores in the U.S. This kept him busy until 1985. In 1980 while attending a computer conference at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, it caught fire. He escaped by jumping 40 feet from his room. Two months later he found out that he had fractured his spine in the jump.
Larry at age four contracted paralytic polio and spent time in an iron lung. Thirty-four years later he started to experience various physical problems, and in 1992 he was diagnosed with metastatic carcinoid tumors in the liver and spleen (over two dozen) and with Carcinoid Syndrome. For the next 14 years Larry battled the disease. He became a leader of cancer survivor groups and of St. James’ Episcopal Church of Potomac, Maryland. He created his own website about the disease and his battle, www.noids.org. Through it all he kept his sense of humor.
Larry was survived by his second wife, Linda Goldsmith, five children, 12 grandchildren, three great-grandchildren and six siblings. His first wife, Betsy, died in 1998. (Obit, Lawrence W. Chinnery, Wash. Post, at B6, June 28, 2006.)
By Duane W. Krohnke
