Weldon Powell, a memorial;

              WELDON POWELL
Some weeks have passed since the tragic
deaths of Weldon and Mary Powell in
an automobile accident near Ithaca,
New York. The Powells meant much to
many people in many walks of life. To
our Firm and to all of us in it Weldon
Powell's contributions were prodigious.
To me, for more than forty years he
was like a brother. It was he who per­suaded
me to become an accountant.
We were at the University of Illinois to­gether,
he an assistant instructor in ac­countancy
and I an engineering stu­dent.
He had already achieved an out­standing
record there as an accounting
student, graduating with Final Honors
in 1922 and taking a Master's degree a
year later.
Weldon came to Haskins & Sells in
1924 at the urging of John R. Wildman,
the Firm's partner in charge of profes­sional
training. Mr. Wildman had been
impressed by Weldon's thesis on "Ac­counting
for No-Par-Value Capital
Stock," and later they collaborated in a
book on the subject. In 1928, Weldon
married Mr. Wildman's niece, Mary,
the quiet, gracious woman who became
a perfect companion and tremendous
source of strength to him. In a way it
is a blessing that they died together.
In 1926, Weldon went to the Newark
Office, and four years later became
Manager there. In 1934 he was admit­ted
to partnership at the age of 31 and
transferred to Los Angeles. During the
two years we worked together in New­ark
I was struck with the man's excep­tional
capacity for friendship. It was a
quality he carried with him all his life.
He had strong ties not only among prac­ticing
accountants and businessmen,
but also among accounting educators,
and he always enjoyed seeing friends at
the campus meetings of the American
Accounting Association, which he
served for a term as vice president.
A Memorial by John W. Queenan
By the time he went West he was
already distinguished as an accounting
technician who tempered theory with
practicality. For ten years he lent
strength to the Los Angeles Office, and
then in 1944 he returned to the Execu­tive
Office, spending most of the follow­ing
three years in Detroit in charge of
our General Motors engagement.
Thereafter he was in New York, a
city he genuinely savored and loved. He
was placed in charge of the Firm's tech­nical
procedures and rose to the summit
of technical statesmanship in the pro­fession.
He served on committees of
the American Institute, including the
committee on accounting procedure,
and on Council. As chairman of the
special committee on research program
and as first chairman of the Accounting
Principles Board which it created, he
demonstrated his passion for accounting
philosophy and concern for essentials.
His devotion to the principles he be­lieved
in I am sure saved the Account­ing
Principles Board from disaster and
enabled it to get off to a hopeful start.
Weldon Powell was a man driven in
pursuit of excellence in everything he
set his hand to. He could not abide me­diocrity.
We could see this in his precise
habits, his powers of concentration and
capacity for hard work, his love of
beauty and order, whether in his su­perb
collection of recorded chamber
music or his valuable collection of an­tique
glass paperweights.
Particularly in accounting he found
an outlet for his love of order and even
for his taste for elegance and beauty—
for the fitness of things. Our Technical
Procedure Manual was his responsibil­ity
as was the effectiveness of our audit
programs. His search for practical solu­tions
to client problems was endless,
and he was always amenable to new
avenues for exploration. His testimony
in court, where he was frequently called
on accounting matters, was masterfully
prepared and delivered.
In later years he found an additional
interest in the opera. As a director of
the Metropolitan Opera Association he
counted artists and patrons among his
friends. He liked especially to help as­piring
young musicians as trustee of the
Manhattan School of Music and as an
officer of the Metropolitan Opera Na­tional
Council, which holds auditions
for hopeful singers.
Weldon Powell's dedication to the
welfare of our Firm, its clients, and his
profession was absolute. In my opinion,
there was no finer accounting techni­cian
in the country, and I know of none
superior to him anywhere in the world.
Our lives and our Firm have been en­riched
beyond measure for having had
him as one of us.
The Powells spent many Thanksgiv­ings
and Christmases with Mrs. Queen­an
and me, and this past season has
seemed empty without them. Yet I dare
say that at his beloved opera house
there is as deep a sense of loss. Blanche
Thebom expressed it eloquently when
she sang "Oh Rest in the Lord," from
Mendelssohn's Elijah, at the memorial
services for Weldon and Mary Powell
in the Brick Presbyterian Church on
October 28.
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