Mr. Yozell, who found success in business, and as a husband, father, and friend, by mastering the art of paying attention, died of complications from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, on Jan. 22 in his Weston home. He was 89.
“There was this wisdom about him,’’ said John Rosenthal of Gloucester, who as a teenager spent many a night with the Yozells.
Mr. Yozell and his wife had an open-door policy for their children’s friends, and their Weston house was a second home for teenagers who became enchanted by the parents.
“They were so cool that you wanted to spend time with them, too, but at the appropriate time they would just drift off and let the kids be,’’ Rosenthal said.
Mr. Yozell, he added, “didn’t have to say much but you just knew he had your back, and that came through loud and clear in his relationships with his wife and kids.’’
Family, Gleason said, “was terribly important to Peter,’’ and that may have sprung from his childhood. He was in elementary school when his family’s leather goods business collapsed after the stock market crash that began the Great Depression. When he was in his mid-teens, his father died.
To help his mother and older sister, he took on a paternal role and it stuck. He never forgot what it was like to plummet down the ranks of affluence. Friendship was a currency not subject to the economy.
“The thing about my dad was that he was the friendliest person you’ve ever met,’’ said his daughter Sally of Washington, D.C. “He befriended everybody from the tailor to the guy who parked the car, and he truly cared about everyone.’’
Born in Swampscott, Peter Sheldon Yozell graduated from Lawrence Academy in Groton and wanted to immediately enlist during World War II, but his mother would not grant permission for him to do so at 17.
He spent a year at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. When he turned 18, he joined the Navy and served as a lieutenant for three years.
“He himself said there’s nothing like a war to make you grow up,’’ his daughter said.
