Guy Crowe (11-8-12)

Guy T. Crowe, LT USN (ret.), 90, a retired Naval aviator and aviation professional, died peacefully at Beaumont Place on Thursday, November 8, 2012, with Christine (Leavitt) Crowe, the love of his life, at his side.

Born in Danielsville on April 28, 1922, he was a son of the late Lee T. and Eula Belle (Streetman) Crowe. Guy was raised and educated in Greenville, S.C., where he was noted as an outstanding basketball player. He enlisted with the United States Navy shortly after his high school graduation. Chosen from his fellow enlisted men to be trained as a Navy aviator, Guy was from that day forward a member of the Silver Eagles.

Guy and Christine met while she was a member of the Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service (WAVES). They were married on October 14, 1947. By then, Guy had reenlisted with the Navy and was a pioneer helicopter pilot. Only the 100th man in the U.S. licensed to fly one, he spent the next several years developing the use of helicopters for anti-submarine warfare. He continued to play basketball on the various Navy teams wherever he'd be stationed and later he became a player coach. After moving with his young family many times throughout the continental U.S. and Puerto Rico, Guy retired from the Navy in 1960.

He spent an interval as a test pilot for the Army prior to accepting a position with the Federal Aviation Administration in 1962. He worked at the FAA offices in New York and North Carolina for the next twenty years. While working in New York he was the first man to land a helicopter on the Pan Am building thus opening helicopter service to all of New York City's major airports. Retired for a second time before reaching 60, Guy and Christine moved to Hawaii where he had accepted a position as Chief Pilot and Vice President of Operations of a new company, Mid-Pacific Airlines. He remained with Mid-Pacific until 1990, when the Crowes retired to Myrtle Beach, S.C. While basketball and softball had been the games of his youth, Guy adopted golf with a passion. He continued to dance, an activity he came to enjoy during World War II. He remained a member of the Silver Eagles Association. He and Christine lived in Groveland, Mass. for eight years before coming to Whitney Place in Natick one year ago.

In addition to Christine, he is survived by their children, Cheryl Anne Crowe and her husband Jim Robinson of Enfield, Conn., Lee Thomas Crowe and his wife Elizabeth Ann of Nashville, Tenn., and Debra Plugis and her husband John of Natick; six grandchildren, Erin and Nathan Winstanley, Vanessa Crowe, Hannah Foley, and Michael and Christopher Plugis; two great-grandsons, Ethan and Brennan Winstanley; two sisters, Shelby Garrett, Easley, S.C., and Nancy Evans and her husband O'Neal, Piedmont, S.C.; two brothers, Coy Crowe and his wife Rosie of Piedmont, S.C., and Roy Crowe and his wife Dolly of Downey, Calif.; and many nieces and nephews.

Funeral services were held Wednesday, November 14, from John Everett & Sons Funeral Home. Burial was in Maplewood Cemetery in Plaistow, N.H.

John Everett & Sons Funeral Home, Natick, Mass. was in charge of arrangements.