Tristam Johnson Obituary
PRINCETON -- Tristam B. Johnson, 84, a lifelong Princeton resident and retired investment advisor, died Saturday at Virtua Memorial Hospital in Mt. Holly.
He had suffered a stroke in November 1999, and had been living at the home of his daughter, Katie Hill, and her late husband Terry in Columbus for the past two years. During this time, his life was enriched by his constant and devoted companion and care giver, Rayfield Meyers.
Mr. Johnson was born in Princeton Aug. 17, 1919 and attended Princeton Country Day School and Lawrenceville School before graduating from Yale with the Class of 1941. He joined the U.S. Army immediately after graduation and served during World War II as an intelligence officer stationed in Australia where he intercepted and decoded Japanese communications. Upon his return to Princeton, he embarked on a long and successful career as a stockbroker and investment advisor.
After learning the brokerage business in New York City, he established the Tristam B. Johnson Company in Princeton before being asked to help start the Princeton branch of Laidlaw & Co. in the 1950s. He later was associated with Kidder Peabody and with Hornblower Weeks & Co. in its Trenton office. Most recently he was with Paine Webber, now UBS Financial Services, on Route 1, where he continued to work long after normal retirement age. He took a great interest in his clients and was known for helping them solve a wide variety of problems as well as offering investment advice.
Active in Republican politics in Princeton, he was elected to Borough Council in 1956 and served as Council President and then as acting mayor when Mayor Mac Sturges was stricken with a heart attack. In 1958 he ran unsuccessfully for mayor himself on the Republican ticket. He was the New Jersey chairman of the campaign to elect Nelson Rockefeller president.
In the early 1970s, Mr. Johnson was named financial consultant in the formation of the Stony Brook Regional Sewerage Authority and assisted in securing the multi-million dollar bond issue for the construction of the new sewerage plant on River Road. He was also a member of a statewide transportation advisory council.
Mr. Johnson had a passionate interest in American history, especially the American Revolution. He became engaged in the concept of "Living History" during the Bi-Centennial reenactments in the Princeton area. He took on the characters of several French and American Revolution figures as a part of reenactments of events and battles associated with the War to bring to life the importance of the events of that era. One of his most cherished involvements included crossing the Delaware during the annual reenactment of George Washington Crossing the Delaware and the battles of Trenton and Princeton. He also applied his passion for history and his financial skills to assisting in the creation of the Swan Foundation, an institution dedicated to preserving and displaying artifacts from the American Revolution.
A loyal member and former president of the Princeton Rotary Club since '51, he was also a member of the Nassau Club. Mr. Johnson was a longtime member and former elder of First (now Nassau) Presbyterian Church and a former member of the Bay Head Yacht Club and Pretty Brook Tennis Club.
Mr. Johnson was a loving and devoted father and grandfather, who took great pleasure in touching the lives of each of his children, grandchildren, and great-grandson, including irregular surprise visits at opportune moments anywhere, anytime.
Mr. Johnson's wife, the former Eileen Douglas, died in January 2002. He is survived by four children from his first marriage to the late Helen Harris Johnson, Kate E. Hill of Columbus, Tristam B. Johnson Jr. of Newfane, VT, Thomas H. Johnson of Salt Lake City, UT and Elizabeth H. Johnson of Williamstown, MA; and two sons from his marriage to Barbara L. Johnson of Princeton, Jeffrey D. Johnson of Castleton, VT and Kevin P. Johnson of Newtown, MA. Also surviving are two stepsons, Christopher Reeve of Bedford, NY and Benjamin Reeve of Arlington, MA; 19 grandchildren; five step-grandchildren; and a great-grandson.
A Memorial Service will be held 4 p.m. Friday at Nassau Presbyterian Church, 61 Nassau St., Princeton, with a reception following at The Nassau Club, 6 Mercer St., Princeton.
Memorial contributions may be made to The Swan Foundation at The National Museum of the American Revolution, Washington Crossing State Park, 355 Washington Crossing-Pennington Road, Titusville, NJ 08560.
Arrangements are under the direction of the Mather-Hodge Funeral Home, Princeton.
Published by The Times, Trenton, on Aug. 3, 2004.
Source: https://obits.nj.com/us/obituaries/trenton/name/tristam-johnson-obituary?id=15050288 and https://web.archive.org/web/20041224054516/https://towntopics.com/aug0404/obits.html#obit5
Barbara Lamb Johnson
March 8, 1932 - June 18, 2024
Barbara Lamb Johnson Obituary
Barbara Johnson, former Princeton resident and Town Topics Associate Editor
Barbara Lamb Johnson died peacefully on June 18, 2024 in Concord, Massachusetts. She was 92.
For Barbara, the features of a good life included a career as a newspaper reporter, a great love for the outdoors, rowing crew, leadership roles in community organizations, and importantly, raising her four boys.
Born March 8, 1932 in New York City to Horace Lamb and Beatrice Pitney Lamb, Barbara grew up in New Canaan, CT. At age 10, with asthma, she was sent to school in the dry climate of Arizona. Later she credited the years in Arizona, and time at Westover School, back East, with building self-reliance and discipline so important to her life.
In 1949 she enrolled in Vassar College. She married her first husband, Franklin Reeve, a year later, and soon they had two sons, Christopher in 1952 and Benjamin in 1953. The marriage ended in divorce. She moved to Princeton, NJ to begin a new life and married Tristam Johnson in 1959, gaining four beloved stepchildren from Tristam’s first marriage. Two more boys, Jeffrey and Kevin, arrived in the early 1960s.
Barbara soon became actively engaged in the Princeton community. During her six decades there, she played important roles in many organizations, including Carnegie Lake Rowing Association, the Chapin School Parents Association, the Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament, Community without Walls, Friends of the Princeton Public Library, the Nassau Street School PTA, the Princeton Hospital Fete, Trinity Church of Princeton, and the Vassar Club of Central New Jersey.
n 1975, Barbara joined the reporting staff of Town Topics, a weekly paper in Princeton. She wrote and edited the music, theater, religion, and obituary sections, while also covering Township Committee, planning and zoning boards, and events at Princeton University. She particularly enjoyed the chance to write longer profiles of notable Princeton residents, including Svetlana Alliluyeva (Joseph Stalin’s daughter) and John McPhee.
She took pride in her accuracy in reporting. When she retired in 1997, the Township Committee and Planning Board both issued proclamations of appreciation for her work, and the Township Mayor held a retirement party in her honor.
At age 57, Barbara took up rowing on Princeton’s Carnegie Lake. She started in eights and progressed to single scull, winning the event for her age group at the Head of the Charles Regatta in Cambridge, MA in 1999, as well as a fine collection of medals from other events. She was selected by Princeton residents to carry the Olympic torch on part of its journey past Princeton to the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
In younger years, Barbara yearned “to hike every trail and read every book." She embraced an active retirement in the same spirit, traveling on Elderhostel trips, sometimes including grandchildren. She visited her children in Vermont, Martha’s Vineyard, and more far-flung locales including West Africa, Jerusalem, and Bali. She also continued to write in retirement, taking on several book-length projects. In 2016, she moved to Newbury Court retirement community, in Concord, MA. She spent her last years there, close by her sons and many of her grandchildren.
Barbara was predeceased by her son Christopher Reeve and by daughter-in-law Dana Reeve. She is survived by three sons and their partners: Benjamin Reeve and Katharine Sterling, Jeffrey and Lynsie Johnson, and Kevin Johnson and Linda Lynch; by four stepchildren: Kate Johnson, Tristam Johnson Jr., Thomas Laabs-Johnson, and Elizabeth Johnson; by ten grandchildren: Matthew, Alexandra, Will, Sebastian, Julia, Trista, Conner, Theo, Lucy, and Annie; and by six great-grandchildren. She is also survived by her sister Dorothy Lamb Crawford, niece Susan Crawford and nephew Peter Crawford.
A celebration of her life will be held in Duvall Chapel at Newbury Court, Concord, Massachusetts on Saturday, August 17, 2024 at 11:30 am, with a reception to follow at Newbury Court.
In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to either of two organizations important to her: Friends of the Princeton Public Library, 65 Witherspoon, Princeton, NJ 08542 or Carnegie Lake Rowing Association, PO Box 330 Princeton, NJ 08542-0330.
Arrangements are entrusted to Dee Funeral Home & Cremation Service of Concord.
Source: https://www.deefuneralhome.com/obituaries/Barbara-Lamb-Johnson?obId=32116269 and https://www.towntopics.com/2024/06/26/obituaries-6-26-2024/
Christopher Reeve, 52, Symbol of Courage, Dies By Douglas Martin
Christopher Reeve, the cinematic Superman who became a real-life inspiration through his painstaking efforts to overcome total paralysis, while speaking out for stem-cell research and other potential treatments, died on Sunday at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco, N.Y. He was 52 and lived in Pound Ridge, N.Y.
Mr. Reeve was being treated for a pressure wound, a common complication for people in wheelchairs, said his publicity agent, Wesley Combs. These wounds result from constant pressure in one spot, reducing the blood to that area and finally killing the affected tissue.
Mr. Combs said that Mr. Reeve fell into a coma on Saturday. The wound had become severely infected, and the infection spread through his body.
A riding accident in 1995 left the actor paralyzed from the neck down. After briefly pondering suicide, Mr. Reeve had become a powerful proponent of causes ranging from insurance reform for catastrophic injuries to unleashing the possibilities some scientists believe lie in using embryonic stem cells for research.
As recently as Friday, Mr. Reeve's name emerged, as it often has, in the national debate over stem cell use. In the presidential debate in St. Louis between President Bush and Senator John F. Kerry, the Democratic challenger, Mr. Kerry mentioned Mr. Reeve by name in arguing against the president's position that stem-cell research must be restricted to protect the lives of human embryos.
Yesterday, the White House issued a statement on behalf of the president and Mrs. Bush, citing Mr. Reeve as "an example of personal courage, optimism and self-determination."
As a young unknown actor Mr. Reeve propelled himself to the status of instant myth by starring in "Superman: The Movie," a hugely popular 1978 picture, then going on to do three successful sequels. Many critics said he exhibited humor and sensitivity, particularly in his portrayal of Clark Kent as the bespectacled bumbler. His own ironic detachment came out in a comment he made while filming the first movie.
"I prevent an earthquake," he said. "I repair Golden Gate Bridge and Boulder Dam, and I prevent a nuclear explosion in Southern California."
He certainly seemed able to. He was 6 feet 4 inches tall, with a strikingly handsome, square-jawed face and a strong athletic build. Even before "Superman," he looked like Superman. Enhancing the image, he performed his own stunts, and off-screen piloted his own plane.
He was determined not to be typecast ("escape the cape," he vowed) and found numerous other roles, including leading substantial parts on Broadway. But it was Mr. Reeve's personal courage in dealing with his paralysis that transcended both his causes and profession, making him a real-life superhero in many minds. By using electrical shocks to stir his numb nervous system and tirelessly exercising, he twitch-by-tiny-twitch was beginning to recapture use of his body. In September 2000 he moved an index finger and the news startled scientists who had not expected to see such progress so long after so severe an accident. Mr. Reeve expected nothing less and continued to improve.
"You have to take action and stand up for yourself -- even if you're sitting in a wheelchair," he said in an interview with Psychology Today in 2003.
Such was his progress that Mr. Reeve in February 2003 decided to have surgery to free him from the respirator that had enabled his paralyzed lungs to breathe. Electrodes were implanted into his diaphragm so that breathing could be regulated electronically.
But infections ultimately trumped technology, intensive exercise and even steely determination. The slim luck that had nurtured Mr. Reeve ran out.
That luck apparently resulted from the fact that some of his nerves had not been destroyed, scientists suggested. Because they were not dead, they could be revived. Massive amounts of physical activity induced new connections to form and dormant pathways to revive.
And with that recovery came a string of accomplishments since his accident that included writing two books and directing and acting in movies. His extensive lobbying for public health issues helped earn him an award for public service in 2003 from the Lasker Foundation, which gives awards for medical research.
In a speech then, Mr. Reeve challenged the medical establishment to regain the sense of urgency shown by the emergency medical technicians who helped save his life.
"I believe I speak on behalf of patients who are willing to accept failure as a necessary aspect of moving science forward," he said. "We want researchers to think less like academics and more like E.M.T.'s whose primary function is to save lives."
Mr. Reeve led by example, as numerous other awards testified. "In the Gloaming," a movie he directed for HBO in 1997, was nominated for five Emmys. His performance in a remake of Hitchcock's classic "Rear Window" won the Screen Actors Guild Award for best actor in a television movie or miniseries.
His autobiographies, both favorably reviewed, were "Still Me" (1998) and "Nothing Is Impossible: Reflections on a New Life" (2002), both published by Random House.
Christopher Reeve was born in Manhattan on Sept. 25, 1952. His parents divorced when he was 4, and he moved with his younger brother and mother to Princeton, N.J. He began appearing in school plays around 8, and soon became involved in the McCarter Theater, Princeton's professional theater.
He was 9 when the McCarter cast him in a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta. This July, Mr. Reeve said in an interview on CNN that the theater became "like a family to me," as he sought to escape his own family's disruption. By the time he was 15, he was a member of Actors Equity and had worked as an apprentice at the Williamstown Theater Festival.
He graduated from Cornell University, then studied at Juilliard under John Houseman and roomed with Robin Williams. While at Juilliard he began his two-year run as Ben Harper in the soap opera "Love of Life." He acted onstage at night and made his Broadway debut as Katharine Hepburn's grandson in Enid Bagnold's play "A Matter of Gravity."
In a generational switch, the following year he played the role of the grandfather in Corrine Jacker's memory play "My Life" at the Circle Repertory company. Then came Superman, a comic book hero who burst on the American scene in 1938. Producers and the director could not settle on a big-name actor who would take the part, so decided to find an unknown. Mr. Reeve at first thought the idea was downright silly and untheatrical, but read the script and loved it, according to "Contemporary Heroes and Heroines, Book III," published by Gale Research in 1998.
After being invited back for a screen test, the actor prepared for two solid weeks, experimenting with complete makeup and costume changes for both Superman and Clark Kent. The young actor won the part, and found himself starring with Marlon Brando and Gene Hackman. "Superman" had what at the time was the most successful opening in history.
By his fourth and last Superman, "Superman IV: The Quest for Peace" (1987), Mr. Reeve was helping write the original story for the film. He was also speaking out on many issues from campaign finance reform to recycling garbage in New York City. He went to Santiago, Chile, to demonstrate on behalf of 77 actors threatened with execution by the Pinochet regime.
He was known for his often expert pursuit of vigorous sports, including sailing, skiing, scuba diving and competitive horseback riding. Following the first "Superman" film, Mr. Reeve celebrated by sailing from Connecticut to Bermuda. He also flew his plane solo across the Atlantic twice.
On Saturday, May 27, 1995, he was engaging in a sport that increasingly captivated him, riding horses in competition. He owned a number of horses, including a chestnut thoroughbred named Eastern Express.
The place was Culpeper, Va., where a three-day equestrian competition was taking place. Mr. Reeve was wearing blue and silver riding colors, knee-high boots, off-white breeches and a protective vest and helmet. He and Eastern Express, entry No. 103, were moving harmoniously as they approached a zigzagged, three-foot-high rail jump, the third of 15 jumps.
Suddenly, Eastern Express backed off from the jump. Mr. Reeve kept moving, pitching forward over the horse's neck. His head hit the rail fence and he landed on the turf on his forehead. His head dangled, just barely connected to his spine.
The fall caused multiple fractures of the first and second cervical vertebrae and left him unable to move his limbs or breathe without the use of a respirator.
Mr. Reeve said that in the days after the accident he contemplated suicide, but seeing the faces of his wife and family dissuaded him. His wife, Dana Morosi, an actor and singer, yesterday released a statement thanking "the millions of fans" who supported her husband.
In addition to his wife, Mr. Reeve is survived by his mother, Barbara L. Johnson; his father, Franklin Reeve; his brother, Benjamin; his sons Will and Matthew, and his daughter, Alexandra. Gae Exton, with whom Mr. Reeve lived for much of the 1980's but never wed, is the mother of Matthew and Alexandra.Mr. Reeve's progress after the accident ranged from very elementary things, like learning to operate his wheelchair by puffing into a tube, to very public triumphs like his tear-provoking appearance at the Academy Awards ceremony in 1996. He often testified before Congress.
The Christopher Reeve Paralysis Foundation, which was founded by combining two older organizations in 1998, raised more than $46.5 million for spinal cord research.
In his final years, after the electrodes were implanted on his diaphragm, he spoke of one day getting rid of his respirator altogether. His recovery was considered remarkable because most spinal-injury victims make progress only in the first two years after the accident.
One of Mr. Reeve's last projects was directing "The Brooke Ellison Story," about a girl who became a quadriplegic at 11 but rose above her disability to graduate from Harvard. It will be broadcast on A&E in August.
Last month Mr. Reeve said on the Oprah Winfrey show that he thought it "very possible" he would walk again. He was asked what would happen if he did not.
"Then I won't walk again," he said.
Correction: October 13, 2004, Wednesday The obituary of the actor Christopher Reeve yesterday misspelled his wife's surname and misstated the broadcast date of a movie he directed. His wife is Dana Morosini, not Morosi. The movie, "The Brooke Ellison Story," is to be shown on A&E on Oct. 25, not next August.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/12/obituaries/christopher-reeve-52-symbol-of-courage-dies.html
Dana Reeve, Devoted Caretaker and Advocate, Is Dead at 44 By Nadine Brozan
Dana Reeve, who devoted herself to the care of her paralyzed husband, the actor Christopher Reeve, and became a forceful advocate for research into spinal cord injuries, died on Monday at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in Manhattan. She was 44 and lived in Pound Ridge, N.Y., in Westchester County.
The hospital said Ms. Reeve died of lung cancer, which was discovered last year, 10 months after Christopher Reeve's death.
Ms. Reeve, a singer and an actress, won international admiration for her devotion to Mr. Reeve's care and for her involvement in the Christopher Reeve Foundation, which seeks a cure for spinal cord paralysis. She succeeded her husband as chairman of the foundation and established the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Resource Center, an information clearinghouse.
Mr. Reeve, whose most celebrated role was as the title hero in the "Superman" movie franchise, was paralyzed after a 1995 horseback riding accident in Virginia. He died on Oct. 10, 2004, in New York at age 52.
Ms. Reeve, who had never smoked, expressed optimism about overcoming her cancer. "I'm beating the odds and defying every statistic the doctors can throw at me," she said four months ago in one of her few public statements about her condition. "My prognosis looks better all the time."
Ms. Reeve was born in 1961 in Teaneck, N.J., one of three daughters of Dr. Charles Morosini and Helen Morosini, who died of ovarian cancer early last year. She grew up in Scarsdale, N.Y., graduated cum laude from Middlebury College in Vermont in 1984 and studied at the California Institute of the Arts.
The couple met in 1987 in Williamstown, Mass., where Christopher saw Dana performing in a cabaret act at the Williamstown Theater Festival. They were married on April 11, 1992, in an outdoor ceremony at a farm in South Williamstown. They had a son, Will, now 13.
In addition to her son and her father, Ms. Reeve is survived by her sisters, Deborah Morosini and Adrienne Morosini Heilman, and two stepchildren, Matthew and Alexandra.
She appeared both on Broadway and Off Broadway at the Public Theater, the Manhattan Theater Club and the Ensemble Studio Theater. She also acted at such regional theaters as the Yale Repertory Theater and the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival. On television she appeared in shows including "Law and Order," "Oz" and "All My Children," and was a co-host for "Lifetime Live," a program on the Lifetime network.
Ms. Reeve essentially suspended her career after her husband's accident, choosing to oversee his care and campaign for spinal cord research, but she did make several appearances after his death. On Jan. 12, wearing what she described as her "Barbarella wig," she sang "Now and Forever" to a sold-out crowd at Madison Square Garden on behalf of a friend, the former Rangers hockey captain Mark Messier, who was honored in a retirement ceremony.
Ms. Reeve will be seen on March 29 in a PBS program, "The New Medicine," which was taped in November. In its introduction, she says, "It has become clear to me that high-tech medicine, with all its wonders, often leaves out that all-important human touch."
Her interest in preserving humane approaches to life in the face of disability was reflected in her work at the Christopher Reeve Foundation.
"She navigated the difficulties in their lives, so she decided she wanted to do something to help people living with paralysis and established the Quality of Life grants program," said Maggie Goldberg, spokeswoman for the foundation. The program has awarded $8 million to nonprofit organizations that help people with disabilities, Ms. Goldberg said.
"Chris was all about research, research, cure and treatment," Ms. Goldberg said. "Dana said, 'We need to worry about the here and now.' "
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/08/us/dana-reeve-devoted-caretaker-and-advocate-is-dead-at-44.html
In Memoriam: Colleagues Remember Professor F.D. Reeve
September 23, 2013, by Kirsten Rischert-Garcia, Contributing Writer
At his memorial service, professors, friends, and family remembered Professor of Letters, Emeritus Franklin Reeve as a man with an excitement for learning, an ability to spur discussion, and a wit faster than a speeding bullet.
“He had this impish and consistent desire to undermine whatever you thought you knew and to force you to think outside the box,” Professor of German and Letters, Emeritus Herbert Arnold said.
Franklin D’Olier Reeve passed away on June 28 at the age of 84 after devoting nearly half of his life to teaching at the University, first as a professor and chair of the Russian Department from 1962 to 1966, and then as a professor in the College of Letters until 2002.
Reeve’s former colleagues, as well as his friends and family, filled the seats at the reception, held at Russell House on Friday, Sept. 20. Several shared their memories of him, and others read aloud Reeve’s own words, including a passage he had written in Russian.
Arnold, who taught a colloquium alongside Reeve, remembers the course as a new and exciting learning experience for both him and the students, especially since the two professors often “fundamentally disagreed” on their interpretations of the material.
“It was a ping pong of ideas going back and forth, and students’ heads [would be] swiveling,” Arnold said. “That was quite deliberate, and Frank was smiling about it.”
At the memorial, Professor of Letters Emeritus Paul Schwaber read aloud a tribute to his former colleague that also appeared on President Michael Roth’s blog.
“I remember Frank Reeve as a tall, extremely handsome man,” Schwaber said. “He smiled ruefully and spoke very rapidly, as if barely able to control his rush of thought or questions.”
Reeve’s notable features and charisma were passed on to his son, actor Christopher Reeve, famous for his role as Superman in the 1978 motion picture. The two so closely resembled one another that Professor of Physics, Emeritus Bill Trousdale recalls mistaking Christopher for his father at a book signing.
“Gee, Franklin, you are looking young!” Trousdale recalled nearly saying to the movie star.
Christopher Reeve may have also inherited his father’s talent for the arts: Franklin Reeve acted professionally shortly after graduating from Princeton and before pursing a master’s degree in Russian at Columbia.
However, Frank ultimately decided to give up acting upon realizing that it would impede his ability to write poetry.
“For the first time I discovered what happens when a person really acts: the self disappears; you entirely, inside and out, become the character,” he once wrote.
Many would agree that this sacrifice was worthwhile: poetry was yet another area in which Franklin Reeve excelled. Reeve wrote 10 volumes of poetry, and he was the recipient of the New England Poetry Club’s Golden Rose Award and various other awards.
Over his lifetime, Reeve wrote a total of six novels, five books of criticism, eight Russian translations, and five plays. Most famously, he acted as an interpreter for Robert Frost on a visit to Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev in 1962, during which Frost served as a cultural ambassador on behalf of the United States.
“Widely learned, he was polylingual, witty, keen with pun and irony,” Schwaber said. “There were few things he seemed not to know.”
That which Reeve did not know, he tried earnestly to learn with great confidence. John Basinger, Professor Emeritus of Theater and Sign Language at Three Rivers Community College and husband of Professor of Film Studies Jeanine Basinger, recalls Reeve’s attempts to study sign language.
“He was willing to just flub it up,” John Basinger said.
Though Reeve may have given off the impression of being “all-knowing,” John Basinger noted that even he was sometimes prone to ad-libbing.
“Anyone who yammers as much as me is going to do a bit of humbuggery,” he said.
Reeve often liked to improvise his lectures and think on his feet, and he relished the opportunity for spur-of-the-moment remarks.
“A certain amount of that was just keeping fingers crossed, but [Reeve] was unafraid of that,” John Basinger said.
It is likely that Reeve’s talent with improvisation and knack for communicating as an actor and poet helped him develop into the skilled lecturer that captivated so many students and faculty.
“I always admired him,” Trousdale said. “He was a combination of forceful and generous. If you kept talking to him about something, you never came away thinking, ‘Oh, that was a stupid idea.’ He wasn’t about putting someone down, but instead tried to engage them.”
In an interview with the New York Quarterly, Reeve once credited poet and critic R. P. Blackmur for developing his passion for poetry after taking the professor’s creative writing class at Princeton.
“My whole life changed when I went to college,” he said.
As his son Brock Reeve suggested during the memorial service, Frank’s time at Wesleyan might have influenced his life just as dramatically as his time at Princeton initially did.
“My father had several chapters of his life, but the theme that runs through these chapters is this place that is Wesleyan,” who is now Executive Director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. “Wesleyan provided a rich, flexible environment that allowed my father to explore his interests, passions, and abilities in multiple ways.”
It is a huge loss for the Wesleyan community that Franklin Reeve is no longer with us, but he continues to live on through the words he has left behind. One poem in particular, entitled “Home in Wartime” and published in October 2002, may offer some advice for how we should cope with his passing:
If I die first, gather the lost years
with the late September apples. At sunset ghost me
beside you on the steps to watch
the tangerine-lavender clouds turn gray.
Source: http://wesleyanargus.com/2013/09/23/remembering-professor-f-d-reeve/
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