Edward Gregory Anthony Bathon, a retired advertising executive and rooftop gardener, died of heart failure June 20 at MedStar Harbor Hospital. The Federal Hill resident was 91.

Born in Dobbs Ferry, New York, he was the son of Edward Bathon, an attorney, and his wife, Mary O’Connor. He earned a degree from Hamilton College. He later attended a business program at Harvard University, and in 2008 he received a master’s degree in fine arts from Bennington College.

He met his future wife, Heidi Tschudy, while they were in grade school in Ardsley, New York. They dated in high school and married in their 20s.

Mr. Bathon served in the Navy from 1956 to 1960 in an underwater demolition unit. He was an accomplished swimmer.

He joined the J. Walter Thompson advertising firm and worked in New York’s Graybar Building. He received overseas assignments in Antwerp, Belgium, and Mumbai, India, where his children were born. He was an accounts supervisor and director of the firm’s Belgian operations.

Mr. Bathon was chairman and managing director in India and a vice president and accounts supervisor in the New York home office before becoming president of the Brazilian office in São Paulo. He returned to New York as vice president of the American Pacific division.

He left JWT USA as president in 1982 and retired from advertising in 1988 as senior vice president at McCann Erickson.

“When we retired, we went up and down the coast deciding where we would hang our hat,” his wife said. “We had two girls living in Baltimore and that worked out.”

Mr. Bathon founded Contact International, a global translation agency, and had an office at Montgomery and Light streets. He retired a second time in 2003.

“He loved to share stories and was a practical joker,” said his son, Nord Gregory Bathon. “He once brought a horse on a freight elevator to a New York City office to surprise one of his lifelong colleagues.”

Mr Bathon kept bees while living in Westchester, New York. He made wine in his root cellar. He rode horses and competed in hunter pace events. While in Baltimore, he created a rooftop garden at the old Shofer Warehouse on Warren Avenue.

“When we moved in, the deck looked like a bowling alley. There was nothing there. We had arches and arcades built to put up vines so we could shade them. I never saw a plant I didn’t like,” he said in a 2013 Baltimore Sun story.

Mr. Bathon volunteered as a reading tutor at Baltimore City Schools.

Plans for a memorial service are pending.

Survivors include his wife of 64 years, Heidi Tschudy Bathon, who sold real estate and was an accountant in her husband’s Baltimore business; a son, Nord Gregory Bathon, of Nashville, Tennessee; three daughters, Heather Mary Bathon, of Pasadena, Nina Bathon Early, of Lutherville, and Megan O’Neill, of Richmond, Virginia; a brother, Larry Bathon of Florida; a sister, Gabrielle “Gay” Nadal, of Williamsburg, Virginia; and seven grandchildren.

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