Alfred G. Parker, 90, Was Engineer and Researcher

Alfred Gaunt Parker died April 25 at the age of 90.

Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., on Jan. 3, 1912, he was graduated from Columbia High School in Maplewood, N.J., and then from Worcester Institute of Technology with a degree in chemical engineering.

He married Virginia Mandeville of Summit, N.J., in 1942. During World War II, he worked for the Tidewater Oil Company, where he contributed to research for the Manhattan Project. After the war he joined the engineering research division of Foster Wheeler Corporation, where he developed several patents related to oil refineries. He later served on the board of trustees of Overlook Hospital in Summit.

Mr. Parker's association with Chilmark began in the early 1950s, when he built a cottage on Squibnocket Pond. After the death of his first wife, he married Elizabeth Beasley Van Buren. Upon retirement in 1977, he gave up his slide rule for an early IBM personal computer, and developed the first database for the Summit Red Cross. He moved to the Judson Retirement Community in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1993.

He is survived by a daughter, Virginia Parker Dawson of Shaker Heights, Ohio; two sons, Charles Franklin Parker of Concord and Stephen Winslow Parker of South Burlington, Vt. He also leaves a sister, Nancy Winslow Parker of New York city, and three stepsons.