John Stauffer Potter Jr. of Oak Bluffs died unexpectedly on Saturday, January 4. He was 89.
A true Renaissance man who will be greatly missed on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, John’s adventures began a few weeks after his birth in California in 1924 when he was carried across the Pacific with his mother, Edna Lee Booker Potter, and his Amah, to Shanghai, China, where his father, John Stauffer Potter, was a distinguished businessman. As a seven-year-old he witnessed the first major Japanese assault on Shanghai. He was evacuated to America with the 1937 Japanese conquest of Shanghai. then returned to Shanghai when the dust had literally settled. He returned to America In 1939 to attend St. George’s School in Newport, R.I., then Harvard.
His college education was interrupted by World War II and his assignment to the U.S. Navy Language School at Boulder, Colo., 1944-1946, where he graduated with a degree in Advanced Mandarin. After a posting to the Office of Naval Intelligence in Washington, D.C., he was discharged in September 1946 as a Lt. (j.g.) USNR.
He returned to Harvard, graduating in 1947 with a BS degree, then entered Harvard and Columbia business schools majoring in planning and strategies. Returning to Shanghai, he worked with business and insurance companies through the 1949 Communist takeover of China; he survived a brutal Communist interrogation, helped his father’s Chinese friends smuggle him out of the country, and remained until 1951 when he escaped to Hong Kong
Work took him on a tumultuous ride to Penang, Singapore, South Korea, and a swashbuckling cast of characters who appear in his 2012 book, “My First Nine Lives.”
John moved to Spain where he learned to dive and became fascinated with the idea of searching for sunken Spanish treasure. He formed a dive group; their exploits and challenging moments are vividly described in his next book, the soon-to-be-published, “On The Track of the H.M.S. Monmouth’s Galleon…and Sunken Treasure.”
After some years he returned to New York and wrote the first of his dive books, The Treasure Divers of Vigo Bay. This was followed by his famous treasure divers’ Bible, The Treasure Diver’s Guide, reprinted several times and still available through FloridaClassics and on Amazon.
He met and married Joan Coles Potter, and carried her off to Hong Kong and a posting with Bulova from 1962 to 1969. His sons John Stauffer Potter III (“Skipper”), William N. H. Potter, and Robert L. C. Potter were born in Hong Kong.
Union Carbide recruited him to their Singapore office. In this position he travelled throughout Asia for several years, training teams of workers in contemporary business practices, and narrowly missing the disastrous explosion in Bhopal, India. Returning to New York, he formed his own company designed to teach business to employees.
The family moved permanently to Martha’s Vineyard in 1997. Here his sons married: John to Susan Silverstein Potter; William to Kerry Quinlan Potter; and Robert to Deborah Holtzer Potter. He became a typical grandfather, enthusiastically recounting the latest adventures of grandsons Max and Zack, John’s sons; granddaughter Cheska, William’s daughter; and granddaughters Charlotte and Samantha, Robert’s twin girls.
Mr. Potter was honored in 2002 at the opening of the new “Museo do Mar de Galicia” (Galician Museum of the Sea) in Vigo, Spain, for his and his divers’ work in bringing up for burial the bodies of drowned fishermen of the village of Moana. Introduced by the Museum Director, he replied in Spanish, Gallego, and English. The Museum presented him with a plaque celebrating the salvation of the fishermen and a silver statue of a man at the wheel of a ship, and the Mayor of Vigo gave him the keys of the city. “Treasure Divers of Vigo Bay”had been translated into Spanish, and hundreds of the books were sold during the four-day celebration.
In addition to his business skills, the multi-talented Mr. Potter was noted as a hilarious raconteur who played the piano well by ear. His paintings of clipper ships and his drawings and cartoons were skillfully executed, the latter with sometimes sly, sometimes ribald, humor.
John Stauffer Potter was a loyal lifelong friend to many. He was comfortable with and had an interest in people of all kinds, of all ranks, of all ethnic origins and languages, from Portuguese fishermen to Spanish royalty. He was, in himself, a unique Treasure.
John’s ashes will be spread in two areas that he loved most: East Chop and near the Atocha treasure ship that he helped to locate in the waters near Key West , Florida. In lieu of sending flowers, the Family requests that you send donations in John’s name to Vineyard Nursing Association, 455 State Road, Box 312, Vineyard Haven, MA 02568-5695, or, to a charity of your choice.
A celebration of John’s life will be held on June 15 at 3 pm in Union Chapel, Oak Bluffs.