Long Island businessman Angus Philip McIntyre dies at 84

Angus Philip McIntyre grew up poor on a Dix Hills farm during the Great Depression, his family said. After his father lost his job, McIntyre's family made a living raising chickens and selling eggs.

Those beginnings would shape the rest of McIntyre's life as a businessman and father of five children, family members said. "It always kind of made him humble," said his daughter Anne Postman-McIntyre of Los Angeles. "He didn't aspire to be worldly or fancy in any way. He always remembered his roots."

McIntyre died Sept. 13 after a series of strokes and advanced osteoarthritis. He was 84.

McIntyre spent most of his life on the 70-acre farm, which his father, Otto McIntyre, purchased in 1920, Postman-McIntyre said. McIntyre attended local elementary schools before getting a scholarship to the prestigious Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, she said.

McIntyre was a "foundation boy" at Exeter, where in exchange for tuition, room and board, he waited tables and served meals to other students, Postman-McIntyre said.

He served one year in the Army Air Forces, then attended Yale University through the GI Bill, said his wife, Barbara McIntyre. He graduated in 1949, and the two married a year later.

By then, McIntyre's father had started a successful direct marketing firm, O.E. McIntyre Ltd. McIntyre joined the family business and expanded it, opening offices and factories in Canada. He ran the business with his brother, Randall, until the family sold it in the 1990s, Postman-McIntyre said.

He built his own house on the family farm in 1952, where he and his wife raised their five children with a close eye on their education. "He thought all of our kids had to read before they ever went to school," Barbara McIntyre said, laughing.

His son Jim McIntyre of Millis, Mass., remembered math practice at the breakfast table every Sunday morning. "He would make up math word problems," Jim McIntyre said. "The older we got, the more complicated they got." All five children would eventually attend Ivy League universities.

McIntyre is survived by three other children, Angus McIntyre Jr. of Manchester, Mass., Katherine McIntyre of Succasunna, N.J., and Rebecca McIntyre of Watertown, Mass.; a sister, Sally Lewis of Santa Barbara, Calif., and 10 grandchildren.

A memorial service will be held at noon on Oct. 16 at St. John's Church, 1670 Route 25A, Cold Spring Harbor.