George Robert Mende, Jr.

George R. Mende, who retired as a senior vice president of Wachovia, was well known in financial circles as a highly skilled bond trader, trust officer and fund manager. He was the life partner of novelist and former Atlanta Journal-Constitution dining critic Elliott Mackle. Born in Knoxville, Tenn., on Nov 11, 1925, Mr. Mende was a descendant of many of South Carolina’s colonial planter and trader families. His pedigree included Gaillards, Adgers, Porchers and Ellisons. A great uncle, Lieutenant Colonel David DuBose Gaillard, served as a chief engineer in charge of construction of the Panama Canal. A portion of the Canal, Gaillard Cut, honors his achievements.
Mr. Mende remembered being baby-sat as a child by his cousin DuBose Heyward and his wife Dorothy, co-creators with George Gershwin of the folk opera “Porgy and Bess.” He and their daughter Jennifer were about the same age.
He also remembered being dandled on the knee of family friend Bernard Baruch, the financier and trusted adviser to Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman.
A longtime resident of Atlanta, George Robert Mende passed away on November 19 of cancer and complications of Alzheimer’s at Hospice Atlanta. His death occurred eight days after his ninetieth birthday.
Mr. Mende graduated from North Fulton High School and joined the navy in 1944, serving two years. While briefly attending Georgia Tech, he applied to and was accepted at Harvard and Princeton. Post-war places were scarce, however, and in the year’s delay he took the recommendation of Princeton to spend a year at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn. Finding that he liked it, he stayed for a degree in economics, graduating in 1949. He then went on to Harvard Business School, and was awarded a Master’s in business administration in 1951.
During college, he worked for a time in the Atlanta office of Holland America Line, a connection that stood him in good stead on a post-graduate cycling trip through Europe with a college friend, during which he was introduced to Queen Juliana of the Netherlands. A letter of introduction from his father’s cousin in Hamburg resulted in an invitation to join the Wagner family in their box for a week of opera at the Bayreuth Festival. Mr. Mende’s love of classical music never waned. He was a longtime subscriber to the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s concert series and to the Metropolitan Opera’s spring-tour performances in Atlanta.
After his time with Holland America and his year abroad, Mr. Mende worked in finance for the Lockheed Corporation in Marietta. He also taught business courses at night to students at Clark College. He was hired by the First National Bank of Atlanta as an executive trainee, soon becoming a trust officer. Eventually hired away by Kidder, Peabody & Company, he was hired back by First National, creating and managing bond funds and serving mostly high-net-worth clients and public institutions such as the Fulton County Hospital Authority. He retired after First National was acquired in rapid succession by First Union and then Wachovia.
His early taste of travel blossomed over his lifetime as he and Mr. Mackle enjoyed foreign vacations, frequently beginning and ending trips to Europe on ships of Norwegian America or Italian lines. Besides Europe, they ventured as far afield as Japan, Indonesia, India, Botswana, Brazil, South Africa, Morocco, Fiji, the Solomon Islands and Guatemala. Their favorite destination was Oaxaca, Mexico.
A longtime lover of dogs, Mr. Mende assisted Mr. Mackle in breeding and showing a line of champion Miniature Schnauzers. This love carried over into his support of such charities as the African Wildlife Foundation, the Jane Goodall Institute and the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International. He also actively supported The Nature Conservancy and Sewanee, and was a lifelong member of the Episcopal Church.
George Mende was preceded in death by his parents, George Robert Mende Sr. and Katherine Gaillard Ellison Mende, and a brother, Gaillard.
In addition to Mr. Mackle, Mr. Mende is survived by a niece, Cynthia King, two nephews, Gaillard and David Mende, and three grandnieces.
Services at All Saints Episcopal Church, Atlanta, will be held at a later date. Cremation Society of Georgia is in charge of arrangements. Mr. Mende’s ashes will be scattered in Lost Cove, at Sewanee, a tract of unlogged land he helped to preserve.
In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations to the Atlanta Humane Society, 981 Howell Mill Road NW, Atlanta, GA 30318.