Albert

Albert, left, with twin Arthur.

Albert Van Arnam Huie was born February 3, 1905 in New York City. He had six older sisters, one living older brother, and a fraternal twin brother, Arthur. Albert always reminded us that he was, in fact, one of ten children; his older brother Tom died at age 4.  He sometimes jokingly referred to himself as the “good twin”: he was the more studious, more introverted of the two; Arthur was the more outgoing, and in his childhood, more mischievous.

Albert graduated high school in 3 years and attended and graduated in 1925 from City College of New York with a B.S. in Civil Engineering. He later earned his Professional Engineering License.

Albert worked as a civil engineer for Madigan & Hyland, eventually becoming a project engineer.  Family lore has it that he designed the approaches to the Verrazano Bridge in NYC.

Albert married Janet Elizabeth Lockwood in 1928.  Janet was the sister of Isabel Huie, his brother Arthur’s wife. Albert and Janet had three sons:  Joseph, born in 1930, and Richard and David, fraternal twins, born in 1935.  The young family lived on both Long Island, NY and Greenwich, CT.

Albert had tuberculosis and became sick, having parts of one lung and his intestine removed.  He lived in the Nassau County Tuberculosis Sanatorium on Long Island from 1941, separated from his family.  He lived long enough to be cured in 1957. Because by that point he had a TV and radio repair business in the institution and was happy there, he chose to remain in the Sanatorium until 1960.  During his time in the sanatorium, Janet divorced him and remarried.

Albert returned to civil engineering at Madigan and Hyland part-time. In 1965, fully retired, he rented a small room in Hastings, NY, but mostly traveled in his red and later yellow Volkswagen Beetle visiting relatives for extended periods of time doing repair work and house projects as he visited.  When his grandchildren came to our first reunion in 2014, many people happily remembered Uncle Albert coming to visit them. His grandchildren loved when he came to visit. Albert died in 1994 after a recurrence of tuberculosis.

Albert’s most important legacies are his devotion to his grandchildren and extended family.  He always emphasized schooling. He helped keep the extended family together, traveling from house to house, bringing news of family as he traveled. One of his favorite times was the 1979 family reunion in Silver Bay.

Occasionally during his visits, Albert tried to teach his grandchildren physics, which made physics seem easy when they finally studied it in high school. His family fondly remembers him sitting with them in the backyard, talking about physics, probably after he had just repaired something.