John Haynes Bailey, 1909–48

On the night of July 5, 1948, under circumstances which may never be explained, John Haynes Bailey “shuffled off this mortal coil.” Some two years previously he had undergone a major surgical operation from which, insofar as his family and his friends were aware, he had recovered, but the incubus of ill health offers the most probable solution to the enigma of his tragic death.Born on May 22, 1909, in the western New York village of Dansville, as the only child of James Albert Bailey, an attorney, and Marie (Haynes) Bailey, he was early taken to Caledonia, also in the Genesee Country, where he received his pre-collegiate schooling. In 1933 he was graduated from Cornell University with a bachelor's degree in physics.