W.K. Fitch Dead At 79
Retired Drcsvo Head Drowns
William K. Fitch, Pittsburgh
philanthopist and retired chairman of the board of the Dravo .
Corp., has drowned while
swimming in a Sewickley
Heights swimming pool.
Mr. Fitch, 79, was dead on
arrival at Sewickley Valley
Hospital yesterday after a
Sewickley Heights policeman
tried to revive him for 15 minutes with. mouth-to-mouth re-
Patrolman Thomas C. Pet-
alino, said he pulled Mr. Fitch
out of a swimming pool at the
home of Mrs. Elizabeth Brown,
Blackburn Rd.
He said Mr. Fitch had been
swimming by himself. Mrs.
Brown came out of the house
to answer a patio telephone,
and saw Mr. Fitch on the bottom of the pool. She called police.
Mr. Fitch, who lived at the
University Club, Oakland, retired as chairman of the board :
of the Dravo Corp. in December, 1959. He had been chairman since 1946.'
Son of a Rockford, 111., doctor, Mr. Fitch began work with
a Dravo Corp. subsidiary as
a sales engineer in 1913 after
graduating from Yale and Wisconsin.
As well as being board chairman of Dravo, he was an officer and director of many
Dravo subsidiaries.
In 1945 Mr. Fitch founded
and endowed the William'Hen-"
ry Fitch Memorial Trust, in
honor of his father, which, has.
provided loans to many, students in, colleges and schools
of nursihg. - -;
He also set up, in memory of
his mother, the Katherine
Kountz Fitch Memorial to help
train cub scout masters, boy
. scout masters, and explorer
■ advisors in AUegheny«County.
Mr. Fitch created a $200,000
endowment under the William
K. Fitch Boy Scouts Development Fund, to develop a savings and incentive plan for em-i
WILLIAM K. FITCH-
Business leader drowns. ■
ploycs of the Boy Scouts in
Allegheny County.
He had also given a free personal scouting library. ■■:-,... { ;
He was an Army veteran of
World War I, and had served
in the Coast Guard Artillery
Reserve and the Ohio National
Guard. N '. '
He was past president of the
Allegheny- County Community
Chest, Western .Pennsylvania
chapter o'f the Arthritis Foundation, Hospital Council of
Western Pennsylvania, and the
Pittsburgh post of the American Ordance Assn.
A member of the board of
the Allegheny iCouncil. of the
Boy Scouts, Mr.'Pitch had also
been on the board of the Har-
marville Rehabilitation Center
the Hospital Plannmg>^j e^"
Allegheny County, o?
Hospital' Assnl of \&
He was also president of I
board and director of the i
wickley Valley Hospital.
Mr. Fitch made headlines
November 1947 when he v
married for a short period
Mrs. Natalie Austin, Pit
burgh socialite and the dauj
ter of the late Judge Step!
Stone.
. Funeral arrangements ;
incomplete.
