Sumner was born in the Panama Canal Zone to Sumner and Anne Hushing, who quickly nicknamed him Buddy, to avoid first name confusion, and he embraced that nickname until the 1980s. Bud grew up in Litchfield, IL, and Alexandria, VA. He learned the value of honest work, as he washed dishes in his parent’s restaurant in Carlinville, IL.
He earned a law degree from Catholic University in Washington, D.C. in May 1941, after three years of night school. Shortly after World War II began, he joined the Navy, starting out as an Ensign. He worked in the Navy Code Room in 1942, was later assigned to an anti-submarine ship in Boston harbor, and subsequently served on the U.S.S. Zircon, patrolling and escorting merchant ships between New York and Guantanamo. He later found it interesting to reminisce that one such ship was named the Pan Am, a name that had so much significance to him, later in his career.
Sumner spent much of his life flying, and it began in the Navy, after he requested flight duty — something he had always wanted. He learned to fly in Stearman biplanes at a small Texas airport between Dallas and Ft. Worth. He was transferred to Pensacola, FL to finish basic, intermediate, and advanced flight training, and earned his instrument qualification. He spent some time training in the PBY-5 non-amphibian seaplane. He transitioned to the Vega Ventura PV-1, and spent many hours acquiring necessary experience in the Florida Keys area, before he was transferred to Morocco, where he flew the Vega Ventura on long range antisubmarine patrols. He once mentioned that their mission was to fly outbound 4 hours, stay on station 1 hour, then try to get back — with a theoretical 9.5 hour fuel endurance. Fuel exhaustion, and failure to get back to base, was always a risk that weighed heavy on their minds, especially when the winds changed.
After the war ended in 1945, Sumner joined American Export Airlines in New York, using his celestial navigation skills on their long over-water routes.
When he was flying out of New York’s Idlewild (now JFK) International Airport, Sumner met his soon-to-be wife Dorothy in 1946, at a restaurant during a fuel stop in Reykjavik, where he asked a pilot friend to introduce them. It wasn’t long before they were married and starting a family. Their daughter Otamay, son Sumner III, and daughter Mikele were born in a conveniently spaced succession, averaging four years apart.
AEA merged with American in 1948 to become American Overseas Airlines, and then merged with Pan American World Airways in 1950. Early during that period, Sumner was proud to say he participated in the Berlin Airlift.
In 1959, Sumner took advantage of a work opportunity, to transfer to a long-term assignment flying from San Francisco International Airport, and he and Dorothy, with their three children, moved to Palo Alto, CA.
While living in Palo Alto, Sumner joined the Palo Alto Elks Lodge, an organization dedicated to helping others. He also became a lifetime member of the American Legion. He participated in leadership of Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts for several years. He and Dorothy were members of Grace Lutheran Church. He invested in several local Bay Area businesses, and became long-term friends with their owners.
Sumner remained with Pan Am, flying such aircraft as the Douglas DC-4 and DC-6, the Boeing B-707, B-720, B-727, and finally captaining the large long-range B-747, until he reached the FAA-mandated retirement age in 1979. As a Pan Am pilot, he served on many overseas temporary assignments, often bringing his family with him to such widespread places as London, Paris, Tokyo, Tehran, and Tahiti. The Tokyo assignment included some above-average risk, as Pan Am was flying servicemen to and from Vietnam at the time. When he wasn’t on temporary assignment, he preferred to bid for Pan Am’s round-the-world routes, which took him away from home for weeks, but also gave him similarly long periods at home between trips.
Sumner and Dorothy were divorced in the early 1970s. After the divorce, Sumner tried living in Tahiti, Sydney, Honolulu, and Napa. For a short time in the late 1970s, Sumner was married to Joanne, who worked with Weight Watchers in Honolulu, and she joined him in traveling the world. After he and Joanne separated, he moved to West Palm Beach for a short time, before acquiring his residence in North Palm Beach, where he lived for 35 years.
Not long after Sumner settled in North Palm Beach, his brother Bill, also a Navy veteran, moved into a neighboring residence. Over the next 30 years, they participated in business ventures together, had overlapping circles of friends in the Palm Beach social life, and had frequent morning coffee chats, until Bill died in 2015.
Sumner developed an interest in personal computers, and spent many hours learning about them, by working in a local computer repair shop. He became fast friends with the shop owner Mike, and they kept that common bond going for several decades. He was known as a computer expert among his group of seniors.
Sumner was an active member of several social groups in the Palm Beach area, including the Pundits, the Navy League, and the American Legion.
An outspoken and dedicated conservative, Sumner never backed down from a good argument, a trait which skipped one generation, but landed squarely on his eldest grandson, who named his law firm in Sumner’s honor.
Sumner met Mac and Adele Siegel in the early 1990s. He remained respectfully admiring of Adele, but after Mac died, they became close friends, and when Adele’s mother was on her deathbed, he promised that he would keep Adele safe. That was all it took for them to become inextricably intertwined for the rest of his life. They had a busy social life in the Palm Beach area. They also took many driving trips around the United States, to visit friends and family. They both loved the widely varying geography of our country, and meeting new people along the way. They also loved telling corny jokes, and teasing new friends into guessing his age — even at age 93 on his last cross-country driving trip to Denver, no one dared guess any higher than 70.
Sumner loved to play tennis for exercise and fun, playing with other airline employees at layover hotels around the world, throughout his aviation career. He brought his usual concentration and sense of competition to the game, and he regularly won games against young men half his age. He continued his tennis activities, playing with Adele and friends, often at the BallenIsles Country Club where they were practically fixtures. Perhaps because of this regular exercise, or just some wonderful genes in his family, he stayed in surprisingly good physical condition for most of his life. He played tennis until his early 90s, when he decided that his degrading balance was making it too risky.
He also loved restoring and driving fast cars, starting with old Porsche 356 models in Palo Alto, and moving on to the beloved Mazda RX sports cars he drove in the Palm Beach area, until he reluctantly quit driving at 98 years old.
Sumner spent his last few years in a well-established and comfortable routine, enjoying his small morning meal, checking email, making phone calls (he called his children nearly every day), attending the occasional group meeting, party, or gala, driving over to visit with Adele for dinner and TV in the evening, and driving home in time to avoid the raising of the drawbridge near his home — the clockwork timing of the drawbridge over the IntraCoastal Waterway was a significant factor in his schedule. He was a safe driver almost to the end — he only stopped driving 16 months before he died. He was sad that many of his friends died before him, but he had a few loyal friends that would come visit, and accompany him to places like Guanabanas and Duffy’s, his favorite restaurants.
At the end, Sumner passed away quickly, at home, and not alone, just as he had wished. It’s interesting to note, that he was born during the 1918 N1H1 Spanish Flu Pandemic, and died during the 2019 Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic.
A celebration of his life will be held at a future date (to be determined), for any survivors of the ongoing apocalypse. In lieu of flowers, please send 2-ply toilet paper. P.S. He also had a great sense of humor.
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