Diplomat, Foundation President Henry Strong

Henry Strong, 83, a retired Foreign Service officer and foundation executive who supported the arts, education and culture in the Washington area, died March 22 of complications of pneumonia at Sibley Memorial Hospital. He was a resident of the District and Gibson Island, in Anne Arundel County.

Mr. Strong was born in Rochester, N.Y., to L. Corrin Strong and Alice Trowbridge Strong. His father, ambassador to Norway during the Eisenhower administration, served as president of the National Cultural Center, forerunner to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

His grandmother was Hattie M. Strong, who, as a young nurse, joined the Alaska gold rush after her husband deserted her and whose second husband, Henry Alvah Strong, was co-founder and president of the Eastman Kodak Co. When her husband died in 1919, she joined her son in Washington and devoted herself to charitable activities through the Hattie M. Strong Foundation, which she established in 1928 and which her son and grandson -- Mr. Strong -- would later run.

Mr. Strong was educated at Sidwell Friends School and St. Albans before graduating from Pomfret School in Connecticut. "He was a very modest guy who liked to stay in the background," his son recalled, noting that it was not always easy being in a family of such notable figures as his parents and grandparents. According to family lore, he chafed at being driven to school in a limousine.

He was a student at Williams College when he decided to enlist in the Navy during World War II. After recording one of the Navy's highest scores ever at pre-flight school at Athens, Ga., he became a flight instructor, teaching night-fighter tactics and carrier landings and testing top-secret wing-mounted radar.

When the war ended, he served for a year as an aide to Ambassador Alan Kirk in Brussels. After graduating with a degree in American history from Williams in 1949, he joined the Foreign Service and served in the Netherlands, Denmark and Indonesia.

In 1968, he succeeded his father as president of the Hattie M. Strong Foundation, which had been providing interest-free loans to college students since its founding. (Hattie Strong died in 1950). Serving as president and chairman of the board until his death, Mr. Strong put the foundation on a sounder administrative footing and expanded its grants to include educational programs throughout the Washington area.

Mr. Strong also served as vice chairman and treasurer of the Kennedy Center and was a founder of both the Ellington Fund and the Washington Regional Association of Grantmakers. He also was a director of or adviser to a number of area organizations, including the National Symphony, the D.C. Board of Higher Education, the National Capital Chapter of the American Red Cross, the D.C. Committee on Public Education, Hillwood Museum and Gardens Foundation, the Potomac School, the National Zoo, Mount Vernon College and Gallaudet University.

Mr. Strong was a skier, sailor and photographer. Having sailed since childhood, he purchased boats at his Foreign Service postings in the Netherlands and Indonesia and published photographs in Skipper Magazine and other publications. A lifelong traveler, he participated in a Wyoming cattle drive in his late 70s.

He received the Mayor's Art Award, a citation from the National Brotherhood of Christians and Jews, the Founders Award from the Cultural Alliance of Greater Washington and a number of other awards and citations.

Survivors include his wife of 55 years, Malan Swing Strong of the District and Gibson Island; four children, Sigrid Strong Reynolds of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Barbara Kirk of Iowa City, Iowa, Dana van Loon of Boulder, Colo., and Henry L. Strong of Potomac; a brother; and 10 grandchildren.