May 13, 1996|By ALISA SAMUELS | ALISA SAMUELS,SUN STAFF
George Veasey Parkhurst, the court auditor for Baltimore City Circuit Court who was proud to be admitted to the Maryland bar on the same day as the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, died Friday at Union Memorial Hospital of post-operative heart and lung complications after a fall. He was 88.
Mr. Parkhurst, a Roland Park resident, was appointed court auditor in 1965 and served until his death. Earlier, he practiced corporate, real estate and probate law at his father's firm in Baltimore. He was known as the "dean of the city real estate lawyers," relatives said.
Partly following in the footsteps of his father, George Parkhurst pursued law. "He had that kind of mind. He was very logical," said his daughter, Emily E. Parkhurst of Ellicott City.
"He was the consummate lawyer who devoted his entire life up to the end to the practice of law. He was proud of the fact that he and Justice Thurgood Marshall were admitted to the Maryland bar on the same day in October 1933," said Baltimore U.S. Bankruptcy Judge James F. Schneider.
"Dad took pleasure in watching Justice Marshall progress in his own career," said Emily Parkhurst. She said the two met once -- when they took the bar exam.
Unlike Justice Marshall -- the nation's first black Supreme Court justice -- who was denied entrance to the University of Maryland Law School, George Parkhurst received his law degree from the University of Maryland in 1933.
He was born Oct. 11, 1907, in Bolton Hill, the son of Harry E. Parkhurst and Marion V. Parkhurst, co-founder of the Maryland Congress of Parents and Teachers.
Mr. Parkhurst graduated from Polytechnic Institute in 1926 and received his bachelor's degree four years later from Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., where he majored in sociology.
After passing the bar exam,he practiced law with his father in Baltimore.
He went to Washington when the nation entered World War II to work for the Board of Economic Warfare in the War Department. He supervised export control of scarce materials needed for the war and traveled through South America.
In 1943, Mr. Parkhurst entered the Army. He was commissioned a second lieutenant and assigned to New York in the special services division. After attending the Judge Advocate General School in Ann Arbor, Mich., he was commissioned a captain.
After he was discharged, Mr. Parkhurst went to work in library services for what then was the Veterans Administration in Washington.
A year later in Evansville, Ind., Mr. Parkhurst married Martha Agnes Leich. The next year the couple moved to Baltimore, where Mr. Parkhurst resumed practicing law with his father.
In May 1966, the Supreme Bench of Baltimore appointed him auditor. He replaced R. Palmer Ingram, who had died. Court auditors determine the accuracy of court case accounts and determine who is entitled to what.
"George provided great service to the court and to the community at large," said Judge Joseph H. H. Kaplan, administrative judge of the Circuit Court. "He was one of our finest, with tremendous integrity, and will be virtually irreplaceable."
When not practicing law, Mr. Parkhurst enjoyed gardening, fishing and boating on the Chesapeake Bay near his Eastern Shore summer home, which his family built in 1921.
"He spent as many hours there as he could," his daughter said. "This became his real hobby. He never played golf."
For 77 years, Mr. Parkhurst was a member of Brown Memorial Woodbrook Presbyterian Church on North Charles Street. He also served for many years on the YWCA board of directors and was general counsel for the Homebuilders Association of Maryland.
Memorial services will be at 11 a.m. Wednesday at Brown Memorial.
In addition to his wife and daughter, he is survived by a son, John L. Parkhurst of Baltimore; and three grandchildren.
Pub Date: 5/13/96
