E. Douglass Ayer, 86, of Lexington died Saturday, June 27, 2026. He was born Nov. 13, 1939 in Worcester, Mass., to Ruby H. Ayer and Everett D. Ayer Sr. Doug grew up in Worcester and attended South High School, then received a scholarship to Bates College in Maine, where he graduated at the top of his class with an AB in history. After a few short stints of graduate study, including some time at Harvard Divinity School, he enlisted in the army. He served in Germany, screening refugees and conducting liaison work with the local German authorities. Following his military service, he returned to Harvard to complete a Master of Arts in Teaching. He joined the State Department as part of the Foreign Service and was first posted to Nairobi, Kenya. A few weeks before his departure, he married Mary Anne Shattuck after a courtship of only five months. They remained very happily married for 29 years until her death in 1998. At the end of his Nairobi assignment, he earned an MA from the Fletcher School of Diplomacy at Tufts University, then joined the CIA. Now with a young family, he was shipped off during the Cold War to its epicenter: Eastern Europe. Postings followed in Berlin, Germany; Budapest, Hungary; Vienna, Austria; and London, U.K. After 13 years, he and his family returned to the Washington, D.C., area one year before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Seeking a slower pace of life and with his children getting older, he then took a two-year exchange position teaching at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington. He fell in love with Lexington, and took an early retirement from the CIA to continue as an adjunct professor at VMI. After many years helping to build the International Studies portion of the International Studies and Political Science department, he gradually tapered down his teaching and finally retired completely in 2021 at the age of 83. In his free time, Doug loved hiking and the outdoors. A lifelong member of the Appalachian Mountain Club, he and Mary Anne bagged most of the 4,000-footers in New Hampshire’s Presidential Range in their younger years, and he explored Colorado, New Mexico, Montana, and many of the U.S. National Parks in his later years, as well as hiking throughout in the Rockbridge area. He skied and ice skated into his 60s. He paddled many bodies of water in his canoe and kayak, including the Maury River. He enjoyed most kinds of music and attended live performances frequently. He was famously not fond of technology (as anyone who ever wanted to leave him a voicemail message knows) but eventually adapted to email. He was predeceased by his wife Mary Anne Shattuck Ayer and is survived by two daughters, Elizabeth “Betsy” Ayer (Paul Hudson) and Susan Ayer (Brian Lees). He is also survived by his sister-in-law by marriage Marianne Shattuck, his nieces Julie LaComb (Ron), Jennifer and Joanna Shattuck, and nephew Jeremy Shattuck (Wendy). A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, July 18, at Grace Episcopal Church in Lexington. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Boys Home of Virginia in Covington.