Harold M. Weaver


Harold M. Weaver, a tanker captain in World War II who later rose to a senior post in Citibank overseeing credit in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, died November 11, 2009 in Williamsburg, Virginia, after a long illness. He was 90.


The cause of death was complications of coronary artery disease, his family said.


Mr. Weaver, a native of Philadelphia and later a longtime resident of New York City and Shelter Island, moved to Williamsburg in 1992.


Mr. Weaver was born in Philadelphia in 1918, attended Notre Dame Academy on Rittenhouse Square and Lower Merion Township High School, and graduated in 1941 from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. At Penn, he spent summers at sea on tankers and won a varsity letter in squash.


Upon graduation, he joined the U.S. Merchant Marine and served on tankers for four and a half years during World War II. He rose from third officer to become master of a T-2 tanker in the final year or so of his service.


After the war, Mr. Weaver in 1946 considered remaining in shipping but instead joined the National City Bank in New York as a trainee. In his 37-year career with what later became Citicorp (now Citigroup), Mr. Weaver worked in New York and abroad, including in Cuba, Uruguay, Iran, Lebanon, Greece and Great Britain. 


In 1967, he graduated from Harvard Business School’s 51st Advanced Management Program. At his retirement in 1983, Mr. Weaver was a senior vice president on the bank’s credit policy committee. 


Mr. Weaver and his wife, Muriel, a Mesoamerican archaeologist, then moved to the family’s summer home on Gardiners Way on Shelter Island, where Mr. Weaver held a number of volunteer posts, including trustee and mayor of the Village of Dering Harbor and board member of the Shelter Island Public Library. He also served for three years on the board of trustees of Eastern Long Island Hospital.


He was a member of the Shelter Island Yacht Club, where he raced his Herreshoff Doughdish and helped out on the race committee; of the Gardiner’s Bay Country Club; and of the University Club in New York City.


In 1992, Mr. Weaver and his wife moved to Ford’s Colony in Williamsburg. Mr. Weaver served as a volunteer docent at the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News. When his health declined in 2002, the couple moved to Williamsburg Landing, a retirement community.


A highlight of Mr. Weaver’s travels came in 1978 when he sailed with his brother, Joseph, and a small crew across the Atlantic from the Canary Islands to Tortola, in the British Virgin Islands, aboard his brother’s 38-foot ketch. The 2,700-mile trip took about three weeks after they were becalmed for a few days just short of their goal.


Mr. Weaver is survived by his wife, Muriel, of Williamsburg; two daughters, Jean, of Herndon, Virginia, and Leslie, of New York City; a brother, Joseph, of Denton, Maryland; and nieces and nephews and their children. His sister, Margaretta “Nikki” Weaver Fogwell, died in 1990.