Obituary of Frank Wade Greene
May 19, 2020
Frank Edward Wade Greene died at his home in New York City on May 19. He was 87. Greene (who went by Wade) and his late wife, Susanne, lived in Greenwich Village for over 50 years.
The son of Melville Hart Greene and Nan Wade Pearson, Greene was born in 1933 in Syracuse, NY, and grew up in New York City. After serving in the Korean War as a military police investigator and graduating from Princeton in 1956, Greene earned a master's degree from the Columbia University School of Journalism. He was a professional journalism fellow at Stanford University and an Alicia Patterson Fellow. He founded Nuclear Times magazine, and was an editor of Newsweek, The New York Times Magazine and The Saturday Review. For the second half of his career, Greene was a Rockefeller family philanthropic advisor focused on issues involving the environment, international security, voter participation and the media. He was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and served on many boards, including the Columbia Journalism Review, the League of Conservation Voters, the Trust for Mutual Understanding and Sustainable Nantucket. He received the 2010 award for environmental policy leadership from Global Green USA and the Eleanor Roosevelt Peace award from Peace Action.
Greene and his wife owned and ran the Wade Cottages, a family business in Nantucket, where he grew up during summers, like his children and grandchildren after him. The couple were active and beloved members of the community, hosting regular croquet matches, poker games, music concerts, fundraisers and Fourth of July parties. When asked how he wanted to be remembered, he said: "As a nice fellow with occasional flaws, not to be noted here." He is survived by his sister, two children and their spouses, and four grandchildren. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the League of Conservation Voters or Sustainable Nantucket.
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