James Spindler

A memorial service will be held at St. Anne’s in-the-Fields Episcopal Church on Saturday, Dec. 14 at 11 a.m. for James Walter Spindler, a resident of Lincoln since 1968, who died on December 7 at the age of 80.

From 1968 to 1979, Spindler practiced law in Boston with Hale and Dorr (now WilmerHale), concentrating on securities and mergers and acquisitions work. In 1979 he became the first in-house counsel for Computervision Corp., a tech company based in Bedford. Beginning in 1985 he pioneered the provision of legal services as independent general counsel for companies which lacked full-time in-house counsel. In 1992 he co-founded and chaired for about 15 years the Association of Independent General Counsel, an informal organization that hosted speakers, discussed legal questions and practice management issues, and served as a support group for its members.            

Spindler was Lincoln’s representative to SILC, a subregional planning organization, from 1969 to 1975.  From 1977–83 he served as a member of the Lincoln School Committee and was chair in 1980–81. He served on the Lincoln Commission on Disabilities from 2007–09, representing the commission on the committee overseeing the renovation of the town offices. He was senior warden of St. Anne’s Episcopal Church for two terms and sang bass in its choir for 25 years. A high point of his service at St. Anne’s was chairing the search committee that in 1986 recommended the calling of Mark Hollingsworth, Jr., who became its new rector.

In 1984 Spindler won the Lincoln Public Library Centennial Spelling Contest. His older son, David, then a junior in high school, was runner-up. He could frequently be seen working in the yard and fields of their 1846 Greek revival house, which he and his wife renovated. He often walked on nearby roads as therapy for Parkinson’s disease (diagnosed in 1990) and enjoyed visiting with neighbors along the way.

Spindler loved all things related to language: reading, etymology, editing, and foreign languages.  He studied Russian, Latin, and French, and learned German as an adult. As a young teenager, he composed gibberish chants for his nieces and nephews that they can still recite (“Beep moo see so battery boo…”)

In addition to reading, Spindler enjoyed swimming, playing squash and tennis, playing the piano, singing, and listening to music. He could easily be located wherever there was food, unabashedly helping himself to seconds and thirds on dessert. Every weekend he would make a pancake or waffle lunch for his family.

Spindler graduated from Cornell University, where he majored in government, took a number of courses in Russian, rowed on the men’s varsity heavyweight crew, chaired the Student Government Academic Affairs Committee, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year.He was a member of Cornell’s varsity eight-man crew that in 1961 was runner-up in both the Eastern Sprints Championships and the IRA Regatta, which served as collegiate rowing’s national championships at the time. He received the Eastern College Athletic Conference award as the most outstanding scholar-athlete in his graduating class.

Spindler was selected as the class marshal for his Cornell College of Arts and Sciences graduating class. During the summer after his freshman year, he was the tallest member of the specially recruited World’s Tallest Laundry Crew, who used their formidable reach to fold 106-inch sheets for resorts in Glacier National Park.

In the summer of 1961 following graduation, Spindler traveled to Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, and Poland as a member of a group of 11 students representing the National Council of Churches. The trip, which focused on religious life in the countries visited, occurred at a time when few U.S. citizens were able to travel behind the Iron Curtain. On the trip he bought a Russian fur hat, which he wore so frequently in the family’s 1962 VW Beetle that it finally wore a hole in the roof upholstery.

After earning a degree from Harvard Law School, Spindler went on active duty with the U.S. Marine Corps and attained the rank of captain. He served as a legal officer (prosecutor and defense counsel) in Vietnam with the Third Marine Division and then in California (doing primarily appellate review work) with the Fifth Marine Division. During law school and for about 15 years thereafter, he worked with Professor Harold Berman in translating the Russian Criminal Codes and Judiciary Act, published by Harvard University Press.

Spindler is survived by his wife of 55 years, Mary Griffing Spindler of Lincoln, whom he married on August 29, 1964 at the Presbyterian Church on Shelter Island, N.Y.; son David Neill Spindler and wife K.C. Swanson, of Arlington, Va.; son Henry Carlton Spindler and wife Carol Bertucci Spindler of Keene, N.H.; and five grandchildren (Samantha Dorothy and Clara Abigail Spindler of Arlington, and Hannah Madeline, Megan Elizabeth and Evan Bernard Spindler of Keene).   

Born in Middletown, Ohio to Walter Herbert Spindler of Peoria, Ill. and Mayme Laue Spindler of Shumway, Ill., Spindler was preceded in death by his three older siblings, Donald Charles Spindler of Parma, Ohio, Margery Anne Spindler McIntosh of Middletown, Ohio, and Alan Herbert Spindler of Davenport, Iowa. He is survived by numerous nieces and nephews, only a few of whom learned the gibberish chants.

A reception in the church will follow the December 14 service. Burial in the Lincoln Cemetery will be private. Gifts may be made in his name to Parkinson’s Foundation, 200 SE 1st St., Suite 800, Miami FL 33131 or www.parkinson.org, and St. Anne’s Episcopal Church, P.O. Box 6, Lincoln MA 01773, c/o Music Fund.

Arrangements are under the care of Glenn D. Burlamachi of Concord Funeral Home. To share a memory or offer a condolence, visit www.concordfuneral.com.