John Henry Pumphrey, a longtime DuPont Co. engineer whose jobs included marble cutting, semiprofessional baseball, organ instruction and zoning administration, died Friday of complications from diabetes at North Arundel Hospital. He was 87 and had lived in Severna Park since 1956.

Born in Baltimore, Mr. Pumphrey left Polytechnic Institute before graduation to help support his family during the Depression. He later took drafting courses at the Maryland Institute College of Art.

At 19, he was indentured as a marble apprentice to the Hilgarten Marble Co. of Baltimore, and worked in Washington on the National Cathedral's lace-marble altar and on the interior of the Federal Reserve building -- where he stepped out of a window after someone had removed the scaffolding, breaking his back. He was in a hospital on a board for a year, said a daughter Janet Kay Pumphrey of Severna Park.

"They told him he would never walk again, but surprise: He played in a semiprofessional baseball league," she said. By age 25, he was a paid catcher for the team of U.S.I. Industrials in Curtis Bay, a plant later acquired by DuPont. He became its chief engineer.

During World War II, Mr. Pumphrey was sent by his company to teach welding at Fort Holabird.

Decades later, as DuPont's chief engineer at Curtis Bay, it fell to Mr. Pumphrey to shut down the plant when it closed, Ms. Pumphrey said. He chose not to relocate, taking early retirement after 33 years.

About four weeks later, she said, he was hired as an assistant to Anne Arundel County's zoning hearing officer, writing up cases for a hearing officer's decision. Knowing that the plant would close, he had prepared for a job change by earning a degree in 1967 at Anne Arundel Community College in business and public administration.

Mr. Pumphrey retired in 1976 after nine years in his second career.

He enjoyed music, boating, model railroading and baseball, and made 33 trips to Walt Disney World -- three trips a year for 11 years. He was planning another when his health began to fail.

He also gave organ lessons and demonstrations, and often played the first service when a local Hammond dealer sold an organ to a church. He was a past master of the Masons Monumental Lodge No. 96 in Odenton.

Services will be held at 1 p.m. tomorrow at Barranco & Sons Severna Park Funeral Home, at Ritchie Highway and Robinson Road.

In addition to his daughter, he is survived by his wife of 62 years, the former Elsie Keefer; another daughter, Carol H. Sewell of Gainesville, Fla.; a brother, James B. Pumphrey of Arnold; a granddaughter; and a great-grandson.