Mr. Palmatary, of 1302 Woodlawn Avenue, was appointed to the Board of Parole by the state Supreme Court in 1954 and served until 1962. During that time, he was also volunteer administrator of Delaware's interstate parole compact.

He often spoke of the shambles in which he found the board in 1954. At that time its Wilmington offices consisted of an 8-by-10-foot unventilated former closet in the Public Building.

Parole records consisted of a card file of sentences served by parolees and 10 years of correspondence arranged there in piles and boxes. Mr. Palmatary instituted systemized record-keeping to cover clients' actual parole periods, and assumed secretarial duties until money was allocated to hire an office worker.

And he frequently reminded critics of the board of the reforms he had made. Mr. Palmatary's colleagues in the board and in other areas of the penal system acknowledged his efforts, but still found him a tenacious adversary on policies.

When he resigned as board member and compact administrator in 1962, it was reportedly connected to a squabble between him and the then board secretary, John D. Schafer. Mr. Palmatary issued a statement that he could no longer work "where discord, waste and hate exist."

But his retirement from the board did not end his outspokenness. Mr. Palmatary continued to champion the efforts of the board and called for further improvements, such as an escalation in the job-placement programs for parolees. At the same time, he called for a return to the death penalty, suggesting that a gas chamber be maintained in Georgetown.

Before joining the board, Mr. Palmatary had a 47-year career with the Du Pont Co. He joined the company in 1904 as a mail boy, and upon his retirement was manager of the materials and supplies section of the explosives department.

Born in Wilmington, he attended local schools. After joining DuPont, he completed correspondence and night-school courses in accounting. He later received a degree in salesmanship from La Salle Extension University and studied business administration at Drexel Institute of Technology.

His lack of training in criminal justice was once an issue. To one advocate of a 1959 bill that would require "scientifically trained" parole personnel, he replied, "That is so much hogwash. I repeat that you do not have to go to college to know how to handle human beings."

He was a member of the Middle Atlantic States Conference of Correction and of the Kiwanis Club Boys & Girls Commission, through which he was associated with a Boy Scout troop at Ferris School for Boys.

He also held membership in the Du Pont Country Club, the DuPont Stamp Society, and the American Philatelic Society.

Mr. Palmatary is survived by his wife, Melitta (Moser) Palmatary; a son, Lieutenant Colonel Robert H., of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; two daughters, Irma H. Moe and Lois R. Querry, both of Tacoma, Washington; eight grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

Services will be Thursday afternoon at 2 at the Spicer-Mullikin Funeral Home, 24th and Market streets, where friends may call one hour earlier. Burial will be in the Wilmington & Brandywine Cemetery.