Harold Faber

SALISBURY — Harold Faber, a New York Times writer and  editor from 1939 to 1997, died Jan. 7, 2010, at his home in Salisbury at the age of 90. He was the husband of Doris Faber.

He had been actively enjoying retirement until a series of  ailments attacked him in recent weeks.

Before the Fabers moved to their Noble Horizons cottage in 2001, they had lived for 30 years on an Ancram, N.Y., farm half an hour westward, so they were already familiar with nearby Connecticut attractions including the Taconic Learning Center.  After moving, Hal served on the Learning Center’s board and also became an active participant in Salisbury’s Rotary Club, in addition to cherishing his weekly trips to the Scoville Library.   

Harold Faber, born in New York City, began his newspaper career while a student at the City College of New York (CCNY) by serving as campus correspondent for the Times. During this apprenticeship, he covered several major news stories, including a state investigation of alleged Communist influence at CCNY. He did so with a competence that led to his being  hired as a full-time reporter shortly after his graduation in 1940.

Pearl Harbor interrupted his journalistic efforts. He served in the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1946, without ever coming under enemy fire.

Soon after his return to the Times city room, he somewhat distinguished himself by writing a piece about the death of Leo, a giraffe at the Bronx Zoo, which was included in an anthology of great reporting published the following year.

The young Faber was thereafter rewarded with his first foreign assignment, to Germany and Austria to cover the departure of the first World War II refugees to be admitted to the United States under the Displaced Persons Act of 1948.

Two years later, at the outbreak of war in Korea, he joined the Times’ team of correspondents sent to cover it.

One month afterward, Faber was wounded by North Korean machine gun fire as he observed United Nations troops in action.  Although a civilian, he was awarded a Purple Heart by the Army. Recovering swiftly, he accompanied U.N. forces crossing into North Korea.

A few weeks later, en route back to Tokyo for a furlough, the Air Force cargo plane on which he had hitched a ride crashed in a fog on the Japanese coast, killing many of its occupants.  Hal, trapped in the burning wreckage, was pulled out by an Air Force rescue team and rushed to a military hospital suffering from severe burns—his right leg burnt so badly that it had to be amputated. For the rest of his life he would walk only with a prosthesis and using a cane.

After eight months of treatment and recuperation, Hal was discharged from Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington on June 21, 1951. On that day he was married in the hospital’s chapel to Doris Greenberg, a reporter who sat at the desk next to his in the old city room of the Times.

He returned to work later that year as a reporter in New York but soon was appointed to a desk job as the paper’s day national news editor, charged with organizing and directing the coverage of presidential campaigns from 1952 to 1964, including  the first systematic use of computerized analysis of election returns.

During that period he also edited several books the Times published, including “The Kennedy Yearsâ€� with many official White House photos and text by Times reporters. In addition, he wrote books on his own for high school readers, among them a biography of General George Marshall and “From Sea to Sea,  a Geographic History of the United States.â€�

Simultaneously, as day national news editor he helped direct coverage of other 1950s and 1960s news events including the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the American civil rights movement and the U.S. venture into space.

In 1968, Faber became editorial director of the Times’ book and education division, directing production of publications and audiovisual packages for schools as well as its large-type weekly for the visually handicapped.

Shortly after Faber and his wife moved to their farm, two hours north of Times Square, his career took a new path when he began writing rural-life feature  stories about farm concerns ranging from apple picking to zebra mussel infestation of lakes and rivers. He also wrote annual full-page spreads directing visitors to maple-syrup producers and Christmas tree plantations, besides directing autumnal leaf-peepers to particularly colorful seasonal displays.

Year round, he provided weekly sightseeing information about historic sites, or covered power-line construction disputes and attempts by rundown towns to revive their decaying waterfronts.  In 1997, when he retired at last as a reporter, a paperback entitled “My Times in the Hudson Valleyâ€� became the 27th book he wrote or edited.  

During his subsequent retirement in Salisbury, he wrote another series of short biographies of explorers or inventors for young readers, bringing his lifetime book total to 43.

In addition to his wife, he is survived by two daughters, Alice Faber of Hamden and Marjorie Faber of Coventry.  

In keeping with Hal’s own request, no ceremony will mark his death. But to  friends desiring to honor his memory his wife suggests contributions to the hospice program of the Salisbury Visiting Nurse Association, which did so much to make his last days comfortable; or to Noble Horizons, which made possible his eight happy years in retirement there.