Alfred W. Barry Jr., former Mack Trucks sales manager, dies

[kscarbel2]

The Baltimore Sun  /  July 16, 2018

Alfred Wald Barry Jr., a World War II veteran who was a former sales manager for Mack and Brockway trucks, died Friday in his sleep at Stella Maris Hospice. The Timonium resident was 94.

He was the son of Alfred W. Barry Sr., an executive for General Tire Co., and Aida Kunkeli Barry, a homemaker. He was born in Buffalo, N.Y., and was raised in Philadelphia and on Park Avenue in Manhattan.

Mr. Barry was the great-nephew of Lillian Wald, a suffragette who founded the Henry Street Settlement House in New York City in 1893 and was one of the founding members of the NAACP.

Growing up, he spent summers at a cabin his father had built in Barryville, N.Y., just north of the historic John A. Roebling aqueduct and suspension bridge, an 1849 structure that spans the Delaware River.

“We used to go there as children growing up, and I remember the sounds the planks made as we drove over the bridge. The bridge is now only opened to foot traffic,” said a son, Alfred W. Barry III of Homeland.

After graduating from the Collegiate School in New York City, Mr. Barry began his college studies at the Johns Hopkins University.

At the conclusion of his sophomore year, he enlisted in the Army with numerous other Hopkins students and Phi Gamma Delta fraternity brothers. The enlistment site was a store that is now the Charles Village Schnapp Shop at 29th and North Calvert streets.

“His eyesight was so bad that he memorized the eye chart to be able to enlist,” his son said.

Mr. Barry served in Army ordnance in the Aleutian Islands until his discharge in 1946. His decorations included the World War II Victory Medal, American Campaign Medal and Good Conduct Medal.

He returned to Hopkins and in 1948 obtained a bachelor’s degree in economics.

Also in 1948, he married Dolores Keating, a kindergarten teacher he had met at Hopkins when she was a graduate student. The couple first lived on Kentucky Avenue before moving to a Victorian house on Boxhill Lane in Roland Park.

After leaving Hopkins, Mr. Barry began a career with Mack Trucks Inc. that ultimately spanned more than 40 years. He started at its Baltimore factory sales branch, which was then located on East 25th Street [actually 1210-28 E. 20th St ]. In 1956, the company purchased Brockway Motor Co., which also manufactured trucks, and it became a division of Mack.

When Mack Trucks sold the Baltimore factory branch to Ed Parker and he relocated to Nursery Road in Linthicum Heights, Mr. Barry designed the building and oversaw its construction. At the time of his retirement in the early 1990s, he was sales manager.

In the 1960s, Mr. Barry started a business servicing trucks and trailers for the old Norfolk, Baltimore and Carolina Line [NBC Line which utilzed retired WW2 Navy LSTs between Baltimore and Norfolk] at Caroline and Lancaster streets in Fells Point, until the city condemned the property for the proposed extension of the Jones Falls Expressway to join with Interstate 95 — a project that was never completed.

He had also been a member of the Maryland Motor Truck Association and had represented the organization’s legislative activities in Annapolis.

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[kscarbel2]

I actually knew Mr. Barry when he was sales manager at Mack Truck's massive Baltimore factory branch*. The legendary Ed Parker was branch manager. Quite a Mack man.

* https://www.bigmacktrucks.com/topic/43698-the-factory-branches-of-mack-trucks-inc/