Background
Paul met Eleanor Beach, daughter of renowned sculptor Chester Beach, while she was attending Vassar College.
Paul met Eleanor Beach, daughter of renowned sculptor Chester Beach, while she was attending Vassar College.
He graduated Williams College and the Harvard School of Business Administration to begin a career in banking.
Eleanor and Paul were married in the Beach"s 17th Street brownstone on December 29, 1934, which was their primary residence until Paul retired in 1967. In 1940, accommodations in the brownstone were rearranged for the growing family. In 1951, while an officer at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Paul Fitchen was invited by the Union Bank of Burma (now Myanmar) to live in Rangoon (now Yangon) for a year to help establish decimal currency and a central bank law for that newly independent country.
He flew directly there in July while Eleanor led the children, aged 15, 12, and 8, through Europe and Egypt from where they took a freighter for a slow voyage on to Burma.
From 1957 until his retirement in 1967, Mr. Fitchen was executive director of the New York Clearing House Association at 100 Broad Street.
He was active in civic affairs and was chairman of the Town of Southeast"s first Conservation Commission. As the role of the organization changed to protect properties in neighboring towns, the name was changed to Save Open Spaces and then to The Putnam County Land Trust, Save Open Spaces, Incorporated.
Paul was also the president of the Brewster Public Library on Main Street in the Village of Brewster
Paul Fitchen died at his home in Brewster, New York at age 88, following cancer surgery.