©2006 The Chestnut Hill Local

Obituaries

John Williams Amerman “Doc” Buyers

"Doc" Buyers

John William Amerman “Doc” Buyers, a retired sugar executive who returned from Hawaii to the Philadelphia area to be nursed through illness by his former wife and three daughters, died May 20 at Keystone Hospice, in Wyndmoor. He was 77.

Since November, Mr. Buyers had been in and out of various area hospitals, gaining the affection of nurses and engendering concern among family friends, said his daughter Elsie Buyers Viehman of Chestnut Hill. “One sick person can meet so many people,” she said. Her family expressed gratitude to the staff at Brandywine Assisted Living at Dresher Estates, where Mr. Buyers had resided since January, to Chestnut Hill Hospital, Keystone Hospice and the Alzheimer’s Association.

Mr. Buyers was born July 17, 1928, to the Rev. William Buchanan Buyers and Rebecca Watson Buyers, the fifth of five children, and reared in Lancaster County. He graduated from The Stony Brook School in New York in 1946, then served with the Marines in 1946-48 before enrolling at Princeton University. His teammates on the Princeton football team nicknamed him “Doc” after Doc Blanchard, Army’s quarterback, who won the 1945 Heisman Trophy. Mr. Buyers graduated from Princeton in 1952, then joined Procter & Gamble’s sales force.

He was, according to his family, a self-confident man with a competitive spirit, boundless energy and charisma. After marrying Elsie Parkhurst on April 11, 1953, in Wilkes-Barre and settling in suburban Philadelphia, Mr. Buyers began his pursuit of success.

From 1953 to 1966, he worked his way up from traffic engineer to division operation manager at Bell Telephone Co. of Pennsylvania. In 1963, he earned a master’s degree in Industrial Management from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Starting in 1966, Mr. Buyers served as director of operations at General Waterworks Corp., a subsidiary of International Utilities (IU) Corp. Two years later he became an administrative vice president at IU, and in 1971 he was promoted to president and CEO of General Waterworks.

The couple moved to Honolulu when he was chosen to run C. Brewer & Co. Ltd., one of Hawaii’s “Big Five” sugar companies, after IU gained a controlling interest in the company. Mr. Buyers, Brewer’s president and CEO from 1975 to 2001, in 1986 led a successful leveraged buyout, purchasing all of Brewer’s common stock from IU to form a holding company, Buyco Inc. He was the largest shareholder, and served as chairman and CEO of Buyco from 1986 until its dissolution in 2001.

Mr. Buyers was a founding member of Waynesborough Country Club in Paoli, and served as a trustee at the Hawaii Preparatory Academy and The Stony Brook School. In 1985, together with Hawaii’s first lady Jean Ariyoshi, he led a campaign to replant trees in Hawaii called “A Million Trees of Aloha.”

Mr. Buyers was most recently a member of Hilo Coast United Church of Christ in Honomu, Hawaii, and while living on Oahu was an elder at the First Presbyterian Church of Honolulu. In Pennsylvania, he was a member of the First Presbyterian Church of Paoli.

He and Elsie Buyers divorced in 1998 and Mr. Buyers married Elizabeth K. Lindsey of Kamuela, Hawaii, in 1999. He helped produce her documentary film And Then There Were None, about the decimation of the native Hawaiians. The couple separated in 2004. In addition to his wife; his former wife, a resident of Benton, Pa., who plans to relocate to The Hill at Whitemarsh; his daughter Elsie Viehman and her husband, J. David, survivors include: a sister, Charlotte Farr of Clarksville, Ind.; two daughters and their husbands, Rebecca and William Buyers-Basso of Bar Harbor, Me., and Jane and John Russo of New York City; six grandchildren, Sara E. Viehman, J. Alexander Viehman, Mark W. Viehman, Marisa Buyers-Basso, John James Russo Jr. and William Christopher Russo.

He was preceded in death by brothers Dr. Robert Buyers of Gwynedd Valley (1996) and James Watson Buyers (1992), and a sister, Jane Arntz Vale (1997).

The funeral is scheduled for 1 p.m. Wednesday, May 31, at Pequea Presbyterian Church, 267 Cambridge Road, Gap, Pa., where his ancestors have been buried since 1756. Relatives and friends may also greet the family after the service at Waynesborough Country Club, Paoli, at 4 p.m. Memorial services will be held in Honolulu and in Hilo at a later date.

Memorial donations may be made to the Keystone Hospice, 8765 Stenton Ave., Wyndmoor, PA 19038, or the Hawaii Island Food Bank, 140-B Holomua St., Hilo, HI 96720.

John N. Poulos

John N. Poulos of Roxborough died on May 21. He was 88.

Mr. Poulos was a retired member of the military. He served as a chief master sergeant in the U.S Air Force.

He is survived by his wife, Marie; his daughter Jennifer; his grandson, Matthew, and many family and friends.

A memorial service is scheduled at 2 p.m. Thursday, May 25, at Jacob F. Ruth, 8413 Germantown Ave., Chestnut Hill. Interment will be private. Memorials may be made to the American Cancer Society, 1626 Locust St., Philadelphia, PA 19103.



Memorial service for Tom Fox

A memorial service is scheduled at 11 a.m. Saturday, May 27, at the Chestnut Hill Friends Meeting House for Tom Fox, the Quaker member of Christians Peacemaker Teams who was slain in Iraq. The meetinghouse is at 100 E. Mermaid Lane.

Mr. Fox joined Christians Peacemaker Teams in 2004, serving with the Palestine and Iraq projects. He was abducted in Baghdad on Nov. 26, 2005, with three other CPT volunteers, and his body was found March 10, 2006. He was a member of Langley Hill Friends Meeting, in McLean, Va.

For more information, contact Jorge Aráuz at AmigoJorge@ aol.com or Ruth Pauly at namaste_eros@yahoo.com, or call 215-423-7465.