Newsday (Melville, NY)
September 13, 1997
Edition: NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
Section: NEWS
Page: A27
Topics:
Index Terms:
OBITUARY.
Charles Hackett, Administrator
Author: John J. Giuffo. STAFF WRITER
Article Text: Charles Joseph Hackett, a retired administrator at Hempstead General Hospital, died Tuesday at Good Samaritan Hospital Medical Center, West Islip. He was 87. Mr. Hackett had been admitted to Good Samaritan Hospital for four days in early August after suffering a stroke. Mr. Hackett had a wide variety of occupations throughout his life, including that of banker, tugboat captain in World War II, hospital comptroller, poet, author and administrator. Mr. Hackett was born in Flatbush in 1909. He attended Columbia University and worked as a banker at Brown Brothers Harriman in Manhattan before enlisting in the Army in 1941. While in the Army, he rose in rank from a private in field artillery to a major in military intelligence. Before leaving the Army, he served as a trial judge advocate and as provost marshal of the 11th Airborne, where he prosecuted German war criminals, among others. Having served in the European theater for four years, he stayed in Biarritz, France, after the war to pursue graduate study at the American University there. He returned home in 1946, attended Columbia's graduate program in hospital administration in 1952, and was soon employed as the comptroller of the Hackensack Medical Center in Hackensack, N.J. It was there during the early 1950s he met his future wife, Maryellen. They were married in February, 1955. She died a year later from complications arising from the birth of their only son, Charles Peter. Mr. Hackett later moved to Marysville, Ohio, where he was the vice president of the Scott Lawn Seed Company. He left Ohio a year later and moved to Ogunquit, Maine, in 1960, where he lived for two years as he wrote a novel, "The Last Happy Hour," about a hospital administrator bringing up a son by himself. "My father would never admit that any of it was anything but fiction," said his son, who lives in Point Lookout. In 1962, Mr. Hackett moved to West Islip, and to Point Lookout in 1969. In 1991, he moved to Oak Beach, where he remained until his death. He was the executive director of Hempstead General Hospital from 1962 to 1986, and a professor of hospital administration at the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University from 1974 to 1984. "He was a consummate gentleman. A man of very old traditions," his son said. Mr. Hackett would often attend the yearly Breadloaf Conference in Middlebury, Vt., where he would study poetry with the likes of Robert Frost and Jack Kerouac. He also ran five to 10 miles a day until the age of 80. "He was very dedicated to the quality of health care, both in the region and in the country," said his son, and he often spoke out for equal access to health care for all Americans. He was Hofstra University's Man of the Year for 1977. Mr. Hackett was also president of the Hempstead Chamber of Commerce from 1972 until 1974. In addition to his son, Mr. Hackett is survived by two granddaughters and a grandson. Services were held Wednesday at the O'Shea Funeral Home in Wantagh. Mr. Hackett was buried Thursday at the Maryrest Cemetery in Mahwah, N.J.
Copyright (c) 1997 Newsday, Inc.
Record Number: 964427837
