Ilion High School - Class of 1914

The Ilion Sentinel - June 5, 1947

Judge Reese Ilion Native Dies Suddenly

Article 6

Judge Reese Ilion Native Dies Suddenly

Judge Fred S. Reese, Jr., 50, a native of Ilion, who gained prominence in Pennsylvania as the only Judge to be elected a second consecutive term as Judge of the Court of Common Pleas of that state, died May 30, 1947, in Carlisle, Pa., according to word received here by his father, Fred, S. Reese, Sr., 168 Otsego St.

Judge Reese, was elected first in 1931 at the age of 34 and was reelected after serving one ten-year term, the second term not yet expired at the time of his death, which came unexpectedly following an attack of heart disease in his home.

The only intermission in his Judgeship came during World War II when he served as Colonel of the Army in the summer of 1945 and was flown to Germany where he became the legal advisor of the public health and welfare division of the U.S. Group of the Allied Control Commission.

Appointed by the War Department, Judge Reese was given a leave of absence by the governor of Pennsylvania and it was his job to set up a de Nazified system of law with his work alternating between Berlin and Frankfurt.

He was born Dec. 12, 1898, a son of Fred and the late Agnes Scott Reese. He grew up in Ilion and was valedictorian of his class in Ilion High School. He went to Cornell University on a competitive scholarship, graduating from there with honors in 1918. He was a member of Phi-Beta-Kappa.

Following his graduation, he returned to Ilion where he spent more than a year of practice in law office of Frank A Schmidt. He left here to become secretary of the School of Law at Dickinson College, Carlisle, and later became dean of the college. He was elected district attorney in 1927, serving until 1931, when he was advanced to the judgeship.

Miss Edith M. Staring, in her essay, "The Magnified School," showed the need and good to be accomplished by using the school as a social center and urged that Ilion's new school be used for the starting of such a movement, a place where matters pertaining to art, civic improvement, literature and music could be discussed by all on the same footing, and the benefit to be derived by the young people in such a movement.

On Oct. 22. 1920, he was married to Edith Rathbun in Fort Plain, who survives. He also leaves his father and one niece, Mrs. Donald Hall, Ilion.

In addition to his law duties, Judge Reese served as director of the Carlisle District of the Boy Scouts, was a director of the Red Cross Chapter in Carlisle, of which his wife is president; served as director of the Community Chest there at vartous times, was a vestryman in St. John's Episcopal Church and a member of Ilion Lodge 591 F&AM.

Funeral services were held at 2.30 p.m. Monday in Carlisle.