"Just Among Friends: The Quaker Way of Life"

William Wistar Comfort (1874-1955) was born May 27, 1874, in Germantown, Pennsylvania, the son of Howard Comfort and Susan Foulke Wistar Comfort. Comfort was raised a Quaker, attending Meeting as a youth at the Meeting at Coulter and Greene Streets in Germantown. He graduated from Haverford College in 1894, and received a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1902. That same year, he married Mary Lawton Fales and the couple had four children: Margaret Connolly (b. 1890), Howard (b. 1905), Mary Lawton (b. 1906), and Susan Wistar (b. 1909). Comfort returned to Haverford College to teach from 1897 to 1898, and 1902 to 1909. He took many trips abroad and taught Romance Languages at Cornell University from 1909 to 1917. In 1917, he returned to Haverford to serve as its president until 1940. He often lectured on Quaker topics at the College. Comfort was an elder, later minister, in the Society of Friends. He was Clerk of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting from 1934 to 1953, president of Friends Historical Association from 1941 to 1953, and a member of the Board at Lingnan University, China. In 1937, he traveled to France at the request of the American Friends Service Committee to lecture on Quaker topics. William Wistar Comfort died December 23, 1955.