Farewell John Wetherhold

By Arthur Schwartz

On May 4, our community lost a pillar. A quiet man who engaged with others in this community and who helped finance many important endeavors, without ever asking for thanks, trying to make our community and our world a better place.

Here is an excerpt from his official obituary:

“John M. Wetherhold was born on June 13th, 1944, in Yakima, WA to Mr. John M. Wetherhold Sr. and Mrs. Mildred Sherley. He graduated valedictorian of Penns Grove Regional High School [in Carneys Point, NJ] in 1962 and received his bachelor’s degree, Phi Beta Kappa summa cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania in 1966. He attended Harvard Law School and received his MBA from the Wharton School of Finance in 1969, where he was a Joseph Wharton Fellow.

“John began his nearly 50 year career in finance at Dean Witter and Brown Brothers Harriman, and would bring his expertise to Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, China, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Macedonia, The Maldives, The Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan, among other places around the world.

“An avid and voracious reader, John also loved swimming, traveling, cigars, and Diet Coke with lemon, as well as fine American delicacies like scrapple and chicken fried steak. He especially enjoyed honky-tonk, bluegrass, and rock’n’roll music, and was known to indulge in international cinema, absurdist comedies, and science fiction films. He spoke Latin and read Latin and was known to converse with his family in Mandarin.

“John was active in a number of historical and environmental conservation and social advocacy efforts in New York City and abroad. He loved dining out and supporting local businesses— he was especially known for circulating two-dollar bills.

“John married his wife Linda in 1990, and they lived together in Greenwich Village for 33 years. He is additionally survived by his daughter Sherley, sister Anne and her husband Tom, brother Robert and his wife Elena, as well as cousins, nieces, nephews, and friends around the world.

“John passed away at midnight on May 2nd, 2024, at home in New York, following a spirited fight against lung cancer. Inspired, inquisitive, and independent, he will be remembered as a magnanimous man of adventure and caprice in a class of his own, eternally loved and deeply missed.”

I first met John at meetings of Progressive Action of Lower Manhattan, which was birthed by the Bernie Sanders campaign in 2016 as the local chapter of the NY Progressive Action Network. One would never have known that he was a wealthy member of the finance world for 50 years. John contributed financially to efforts to keep Beth Israel Hospital open going back to 2017, to efforts to rationalize the City’s open dining program (he helped finance the successful litigation), he donated to the litigation over the 14th Street Busway, and to another lawsuit which brought elevators to the 14th Street subway at 6th Avenue and 7th Avenue, and he helped the Village Sun and Village View get started. All the while, he was humble and never one to demand getting his way.

He will be missed.