Alexander “Alec” Macmillan, a lifelong resident of Hingham and Silver Lake, New Hampshire, died at home on August 20 with his family by his side.
Throughout his life, both personally and professionally, Alec was dedicated to public service. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on September 28, 1940, to Stuart and Margaret (McCorkle) Macmillan, Alec was a 1958 graduate of Hingham High School. He graduated from Harvard College in 1962 and the University of Michigan Law School in 1965. After law school, Alec returned to Hingham and began the practice of law in Boston. He was appointed an Assistant Attorney General by Eliot Richardson and also served in the same capacity under Richardson’s successor, Robert Quinn, heading the Division of Public Charities. He met his wife, Sunny, in 1970 when they worked together to create Governor Francis Sargent’s Commission on the Status of Women.
He was later appointed as Chair of the Massachusetts Labor Relations Commission and then as Chair of the Massachusetts Civil Service Commission under both Republican and Democratic governors, drafting and administering a new statute granting broad collective bargaining rights to public employees. After leaving state service, he served as a labor arbitrator, becoming a member of the National Academy of Arbitrators.
In Hingham, Alec served in leadership roles on a number of boards and committees. He was a member and Chair of the Hingham Advisory Committee for five years; Chair of the Open Space Committee – where he helped obtain key harbor front properties for the Town; and Chair of the Zoning Board of Appeals. He then assumed leadership of the Hingham Historical Commission, where he oversaw creation of several local and National Register Historic Districts and drafted a new Historic District bylaw.
For nearly two decades he represented Hingham in negotiations with the Commonwealth of Massachusetts regarding the proposed restoration of the Greenbush rail line from the South Shore to Boston. Eventually, he persuaded the Governor and Secretary of Transportation to run the train in a tunnel under Hingham Square in order to reduce adverse impacts, and to establish a multi-million dollar trust fund, administered by the Historical Commission, to support properties otherwise affected by the construction. In 2009 he was honored by the Hingham Journal as Citizen of the Year, earning the title “The Man Who Saved Hingham Square.”
He also served for six years as President of the Hingham Historical Society – publishing and republishing several histories of the Town – and as President of the Wilder Charitable and Educational Fund. In retirement, he was appointed by the Select Board as Town Historian, where he informally advised Town boards and committees, and citizens at large, on local historical matters of interest to them.
At Hingham High School Alec was president of the drama club, and for much of his life he delighted in watching the high school’s plays and musicals. He and his siblings also endowed the Stuart Macmillan Scholarship in honor of their father, which is awarded annually to a graduating senior at Hingham High School.
It can truly be said that Alec loved the Town of Hingham.
A lifelong summer resident of Silver Lake, NH, Alec loved spending his time outdoors hiking, swimming in lakes and rivers, and – much like his father before him – trimming and clipping, puttering around, marking trees to be cut down and, of course, entertaining the multitudes of visitors to his beloved Crow’s Nest.
Sports were the other constant in Alec’s life. Ted Williams and Bill Russell were his greatest heroes (he witnessed Williams’s legendary final at-bat in person, on his birthday), and as a Michigan man he was thrilled by Tom Brady’s ascendance. For more than 50 years he held season tickets to Harvard Football games; in college he played the giant drum in the Harvard Band just so he could get free rides to away games (and parties). He spent years as a volunteer coach for Hingham Gals Softball (where he considered himself the #1 cheerleader) and was a fixture on the sidelines of his daughter Kate’s field hockey and lacrosse games. In recent years – much to his family’s chagrin – he was known to send strategy suggestions to the coaches of his granddaughter Dasha (a Division 1 college basketball player!).
Alec was “OH Adjacent”. He never actually worked in a hut or at Pinkham, as far as we know, but from his sister Jean’s obituary, we know that he and his siblings had a love of the White Mountains instilled in them from a very early age. His parents Stuart and Margaret Macmillan met on top of Mt Washington in 1924, and his father Stuart was later the president of the AMC. His sister Jean was one of the very first females to work in the Pinkham kitchen as well as several huts. His brother Tony founded the MMVSP and brother Andrew also worked in the huts. Alec served as Chief Patrolman of the MMVSP since 1976, after the death of Tony.
Predeceased by his parents, his brothers, Andrew and Anthony, and his sister, Jean (Macmillan) Bennion, Alec is survived by his wife of 52 years, Sunny (Gould); their daughter Kate McFarlane (James) of Shaker Heights, Ohio; two children from a previous marriage, Douglas (Tanya) and Anne Deems (David), both of Dallas, Texas; and his five grandchildren Alex, Andrew, Dasha, Maggie, and Tad.
A memorial service will be held at 11a.m. at the Old Ship Meeting House, 90 Main Street, Hingham, MA 02043 on Saturday, October 11. In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to organizations dear to Alec such as the Appalachian Mountain Club, the Hingham Historical Society, or the Trustees of Reservations, or the charity of your choice.