Walter Damrosch Littell

Walter Damrosch Littell, whose career began during the golden age of network television news, was followed by a distinguished tenure in university public relations, most notably advising A. Bartlett Giamatti during his visionary tenure as president of Yale University, and ended as a poet in the birthplace of American Transcendentalism, died in his home in Concord, Mass., February 11, 2025. He was 93. While the cause of death was congestive heart failure, he would have wanted all to know the cause of his demise was trying to reach the top of Mt. Everest on roller skates. 

Walter was born on February 1, 1932, in New York City, into a family of writers and musicians in a time when America's cultural identity was emerging as a major influence on the world. His mother Anita Damrosch Littell, was an event planner, and the daughter of the conductor, composer, and music educator Walter Damrosch. His father Robert Littell, was a writer, journalist, and longtime editor for Reader's Digest. The third child of four (Blaine, Alisa 'Schwesti' Storrow, and Philip), Walter spent his childhood summers at the family compound in Tyringham, Massachusetts, and later graduated from Harvard in 1955. He married Penelope Platt in 1961, and together they raised three children: Fanny, Matthew and Andrew Littell. 

He began his career writing a bowling column in Kansas City and went on to write and edit for the Washington Daily News, Reader's Digest, and served as the City Hall reporter for the New York Herald Tribune before entering broadcast journalism in 1962 as a writer/producer for NBC News. There, he supervised the production of more than 100 network news programs covering presidential trips, the Vietnam War, space exploration and the social upheaval of the late sixties and early seventies. In 1979, after holding positions at Mobil Oil and St. Luke's Hospital, he accepted a position as Yale University's director of public information, advising on all internal and external communications strategies. 

His wife Penny, who fought cancer with courage and humor, died in 1984. Walter moved to Boston in 1986 to become the Associate Vice Chancellor for External Relations at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He retired from the world of education and public relations to pursue his own writing in 1994. 

In 1999, while vacationing in North Haven, Maine, he met Leli Sudler, and the following year, they were married and moved to Concord, Massachusetts. The next ten years were joyful - spending time with his and her children and grandchildren, his large extended family, playing golf and writing poetry. Crushed by the early death of his youngest son, Andrew, in 2012, Walter relied on the support of family and friends and emerged with two volumes of deeply felt poetry: Burning Elephant and Night Pasture Dispatches. 

Walter was the last living member of his generation of Littell/Damrosches. He is survived by his wife Leli; his daughter Fanny Littell, her husband Adam Heath, and their son Max Heath; his son Matthew, his wife Sheila Gallagher, and their son Jude; his son Andrew's wife, Brooke Russell, and their two daughters Gracie and Catie; his stepdaughter Isabel Blunt, her husband Ben, and their three children Wyatt, Sam, and Harriet. 

Memorial services will be private. 

In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to one of the following organizations: World Central Kitchen https://wck.org/story or Perkins School for the Blind https://www.perkins.org/