My Dad died this week in the same way that my Mom died in February: complications following emergency hip surgery. A generation gone in little more than four months.
He and my Mom raised five half-decent kids and educated us all privately and to the max.
I'll tell you just a little about Dad. He was a grad of Phillips Andover and Harvard College (which he entered aged 16), served in the US Army from 1942-45, went on to graduate studies at the great University of Chicago and then was called back to the Army from 1951-53. After that, he began an academic career combined with private consulting and retired as a full Professor at Yale with a folder full of teaching honors and awards and two generations of grateful students to his credit.
His devotion to intellectual pursuits and lifelong learning have been an inspiration. I clipped this bit from the obit my sibs are working on:
He was known for his sharp wit, brain power, and intolerance of fools. He was an omnivorous reader and a life-long student. A confirmed atheist, he could quote the Bible (and Shakespeare) at will. A Christian at heart. He did not care for TV and for most of his life would not have one in the house or at the farm. He had no patience for movies. He loved outdoor labor, planting trees, his vegetable garden, liberal politics, all sorts of conservation causes, The New York Times, The Metropolitan Opera, ballet, Shakespeare, travels to England, Tuscany, and Scandinavia, the Tanglewood Music Festival, Cape Cod, the farm in Massachusetts - and his beloved wife of over 50 years and his large family (12 grandkids plus a great-grandson) which was always around.
Dad was 6'3", wiry but muscular, and good with chain saws, farm tractors, and tools in general. An inspiration and an impressive, masculine, tough, frequently caustic, hard-working and good man. Some thought he resembled Gary Cooper. He was stern, and not a "have a nice day" sort of person. He was good with firearms, but after two wars he had seen enough of them and quit them after training us kids. A New England Yankee born and bred, he disdained the pursuit of money, and ostentation. His intolerance of things of which he disapproved could be intense. As his kids, he was highly effective at keeping us scared straight, mostly.
We'll be keeping his apple trees at the farm pruned for many years, God willing.
Photo is my photo of a photo of Dad at the farm a while ago.
