OBITUARY
PETER SETON HELLER
Peter Seton Heller, a lively presence in Siasconset for over 50 summers, died of melanoma on October 21 at the age of eighty at his home in New York City. A graduate of the Putney School, Harvard College, and the Harvard Law School, he was for forty years a corporate lawyer (and for some time managing partner) at Webster and Sheffield, for fifteen a composer of chamber music, and throughout his life an active philanthropist.

His formal interests were music, the law, education, and health care. In his free time he was an enthusiastic reader, rower, tennis player, and golfer, a familiar figure on the playing fields of Siasconset. He served his alma mater in various roles: as a member of various visiting committees, and as Vice President of the Associated Harvard Alumni, President of the Harvard Club of New York, and as an Overseer of Harvard College, which in 1994 awarded him the Harvard Medal. He was also a trustee and Vice President of the board of the Brearley School in New York, and a member of the boards of Radcliffe College and the Public Education Association.

His keen interest in music was strengthened by long study with Stanley Wolff at The Juilliard School. (Among his compositions is what may be the most interesting work about this island,"Four Nantucket Rags.") He long served as trustee and vice president of the Board of the New York Philharmonic, and at his death was a Director of the board of American Composers Orchestra. Throughout his life he played the violin, and, in later years, the piano.

Health care was another lifelong concern. He served as trustee and vice-chairman of the St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center, and headed the Board of Trustees of the St. Luke's-Roosevelt Institute of Health Science and the Advisory Committee of the Kathryn and Gilbert Miller Health Care Institute for Performing Artists.

The energy and wide-ranging intelligence such activities demand were seasoned in Peter Heller's life by a keen sense of laughter, and robust enthusiasm for evenings with friends, for fresh adventures, and frequent trips to places that whetted his interest in archaeology. His perceptions were shrewd and incisive, but patience and kindness softened his keenness; one classmate remarked that he'd "never heard Peter say a harsh word about anyone." His friends on Nantucket and in New York will miss his loving, constant presence beside his wife of fifty years, the former Mary Wheeler, and his beloved daughter and grandchildren, Kate Heller O'Reilly, Mary, and Sean, and Dermot O'Reilly, their father.

A memorial service is planned for Friday, October 27 at 11 a.m. at St. James's Church, 71st Street and Madison Avenue in New York City. Contributions in lieu of flowers may be made to St Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center, 1000 Tenth Avenue, New York, NY 10019 or to the American Composers Orchestra, 1775 Broadway, New York, NY 10001.