David J. Sparrow

David J. Sparrow, a prominent Detroit real estate and property development attorney for 60 years, died Sunday in Royal Oak's William H. Beaumont Hospital after a short illness. He was 84. Services will be at 11 a.m., Thursday in Christ Church Cranbrook, 470 Church Rd., Bloomfield Hills. The cremated remains will be interred in the church's columbarium. A resident of Birmingham and Harbor Springs, Mr. Sparrow was born and raised in Detroit. He graduated from Northwestern High School in 1945, then served two years in the U.S. Army. Upon discharge, he enrolled in the Detroit College of Law, graduating in 1951. He married Dona Patricia Waters in the same year. She died in 2008. For 52 years, Mr. Sparrow was the partner of the late Gerald Rowin in the firm of Rowin & Sparrow. Meeting on the first day of law school, they liked to say the only contract they ever had was an initial handshake, with nothing on paper. A lifelong Episcopalian, Mr. Sparrow was a past warden and vestry member of Christ Church Cranbrook in Bloomfield Hills. Up until the time of his death, Mr. Sparrow was a trustee of the Detroit College of Law, now known as the Michigan State University College of Law. He served 27 years. For two decades he was president and a trustee of the board of the Oakland County Intermediate School District and several terms as a trustee of Mariners Inn in Detroit. His egalitarian roots took him into Democratic Party politics where he became close friends and associates with Frank Kelley, who was the attorney general of Michigan from 1962 to 1998, and Stuart Hertzberg who was a Democratic National Committeeman from Michigan and a fellow lawyer. Kelley said of Mr. Sparrow that "he met all the standards that we associate with human excellence: intelligence, courage, achievement, compassion, loyalty, honesty and decency in all things. I knew him for most of his life and never found anything to change my opinion." Hertzberg said he had "no older nor finer friend than David. He moved to the top of every organization to which he ever belonged because of his talents and temperament. He was a quiet presence in the middle of whatever was going on." For 60 plus years, Kelley and Hertzberg shared a special summer weekend known as "Kelley's" with Mr. Sparrow, and a few previously departed friends, including Mr. Rowin and former Michigan Governor, John B. Swainson. Hertzberg said, "We talked politics until we were hoarse – all but Kelley who the longer he talked the louder he got, dominating the discussion." The Sparrow family established a vacation home in Harbor Springs in the late 1960s, where the family spent their summers. Over the past decade, Mr. Sparrow and his dear wife, Pat, spent more and more of the year there. He joined a morning coffee klatch at Harbor Springs Island Bean restaurant, where this week his friends reminisced about him. One of them, Joe D'Italia, a self-described confirmed Republican, said that Mr. Sparrow, a confirmed Democrat, "was a guy you could talk to about politics, and while he didn't agree with you, was always pleasant about it. We looked forward to those conversations and are going to miss them a lot. He was a gentleman who brought class to our group." Mr. Sparrow is survived by three daughters: Susan Carson of Good Hart, Michigan and Houston, Texas, Nancy of Royal Oak and Joanne Stewart of Kalamazoo; six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Memorials may be designated to Focus: HOPE, 1355 Oakman Boulevard, Detroit, MI 48238.

David J. Sparrow

July 5, 1927 - January 1, 2012