Al Barkow obit

Al Barkow, award-winning golf author and historian, dies at 93

He was not on the list.

Al Barkow, the acclaimed golf writer, historian and author of Golf's Golden Grind: The History of the PGA Tour and Gettin' to the Dance Floor: An Oral History of American Golf, died Sunday. He was 93.

Barkow began his career in golf journalism in 1963 when he joined the television series Shell's Wonderful World of Golf. His first assignment was the famed "Hogan vs. Snead" match at Houston Country Club. Over the next six years, Barkow served as the show's chief writer and associate producer before eventually becoming a co-producer.

"Al led a tremendously full golf life," said Jaime Diaz, longtime contributor to Golf Digest and Golf Channel. "Al knew the game as well as any golf writer who ever lived and loved its mysteries as deeply as anyone I've ever known. All of that, along with an invigorating stint at Second City, produced a singularly soulful body of work."

Al Barkow, the author of “Golf’s Golden Grind: The History of the PGA Tour” and “Getting’ to the Dance Floor: An Oral History of American Golf,” at Pebble Beach Golf Links in 2019, where he covered U.S. Opens beginning in 1972.

Over a career that spanned seven decades, Barkow authored 12 books and collaborated with some of the game's most respected teachers and players. His later works included Sam: The One and Only Sam Snead and The Upset: Jack Fleck's Incredible Defeat of Ben Hogan for the U.S. Open.

He also co-authored instructional books with professionals Dave Stockton, Phil Rodgers, George Low and Carl Lohren, as well as World Golf Hall of Fame members Billy Casper and Ken Venturi.

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Barkow was perhaps best known for his historical works. Golf's Golden Grind became one of the definitive accounts of the PGA Tour's development, while Gettin' to the Dance Floor earned the USGA's inaugural Herbert Warren Wind Golf Book of the Year Award in 1986. "I discovered if you called him Ben instead of Mr. Hogan. he eased up a little," Barkow recalled. "Then he knew you weren't intimidated. He was a great intimidator."

In recognition of his contributions to golf journalism, Barkow received some of the profession's highest honors, including the Memorial Tournament's Journalism Honoree Award in 2003, the PGA Lifetime Achievement Award in Journalism in 2005 and the Metropolitan Golf Writers Association's Linc Werden Journalism Award in 2007.

Born in Chicago, Barkow attended Western Illinois University, where he helped the school win the 1959 NAIA national championship in golf. He later graduated from Roosevelt University. Despite making a living writing instruction articles, Barkow proved to be a skilled player himself, qualifying for the 1971 U.S. Amateur at Merion. "One of my biggest thrills," he told NCGA Golf Magazine.

"From starting out in Chicago caddying at Tam O'Shanter, to being a member of a national championship small-college team, to traveling the globe with Shell's Wonderful World of Golf, to innovative editorships at Golf Magazine and Golf Illustrated, to then writing more than a dozen exceptional books on the game, Al touched nearly every corner of golf," Diaz said.

"His Gettin' to the Dance Floor stands as golf's greatest oral history, and Golf's Golden Grind is an essential chronicle of the PGA Tour's evolution. His intimate portrayals of Hogan, Snead and Nelson were informed by long, relaxed conversations with each man, and before Shell matches, he and Gene Sarazen formed a feisty and fast-moving twosome on some of the world's great courses."

Barkow moved to Oakland, California, in 2002 and spent much of the last decade contributing to NCGA Golf magazine. His stories ranged from profiles of Bay Area courses and professionals to deeply personal essays.

Among his most memorable work were stories on Black golf pioneer Lucius Bateman, efforts that helped lead to Bateman's posthumous induction into the NCGA Hall of Fame; major champion Olin Dutra; and a moving account of his son Adam's recovery from alcoholism and the role golf played in that journey.

"As a professional journalist, I am always looking for stories to tell of events that reveal something about how the world works, how people deal with the turns life takes, how they made it turn and the outcomes," Barkow wrote.

"But that is not the case here, for the story to be told involves my son, Adam Barkow, and how golf, which has been an integral part of our lives, has played so large a role in his tale of rebirth, recovery and emancipation. It's a good story that is getting better, and I think best told by his dad."

The story ran in July and served as a reminder that even in his 90s, Barkow had lost none of the curiosity, warmth or storytelling touch that made him one of golf's most respected writers. 

He was not on the list.

Gordon Wood obit

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author and Historian Gordon Wood Hit and Killed by Motorist

 He was not on the list.

On Sunday, one of Rhode Island’s most accomplished writers and historians, Gordon Wood, was hit and killed by a motorist.

 

He was 92.

Wood won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize.

Wood was one of America’s most accomplished scholars on the American Revolution — he won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for History for his work The Radicalism of the American Revolution. In 2010, he was awarded the National Humanities Medal.

He was the Alva O. Way University Professor and Professor of History Emeritus at Brown University. His list of academic awards over the past 50 years is unmatched - he is the leading Revolutionary era historian.

Police Report

East Providence Police reported that on Sunday, “officers were dispatched to the Shaw's Supermarket parking lot on Taunton Avenue for a report of a pedestrian struck by a motor vehicle. Upon the officer's arrival, they began treating a 92-year-old male from Providence who sustained serious injuries in the crash. The male was transported to Rhode Island Hospital, where he later succumbed to his injuries.”

According to the East Providence Police:

"The female operator of the vehicle remained on scene and is cooperating with investigators. The Traffic/Crash Reconstruction Team and Detective Division are investigating the crash. At this time, the operator has not faced any charges," said East Providence Police.

The East Providence Police Department would like to thank the public who called 911 and assisted on scene before first responders arrived. At this time, the operator's name is not being released.

Wood was born in Concord, Massachusetts, and grew up in Worcester and Waltham. He graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Tufts University in 1955 and has served as a trustee there. While serving in the United States Air Force in Japan, he obtained a Master of Arts in history from Harvard University. After finishing his service, he obtained his Ph.D. in history from Harvard in 1964 under Bernard Bailyn. His dissertation discussed the formation of distinctive political values and structures of thought in the late colonial era of British North America and became the basis for his 1969 book, The Creation of the American Republic, 1776–1787.

Early in his career, Wood taught at Harvard University and the University of Michigan.[5] In 1969, he joined the faculty of Brown University where he was Professor of History and Alva O. Way University Professor.

Wood also taught at the College of William and Mary and from 1982 to 1983 was Pitt Professor at Cambridge University. In 2026, Professor Akhil Reed Amar, a friend and associate of Wood's, called him "America’s greatest living historian".

In addition to his books (listed below), Wood wrote numerous influential[how?] articles, notably "Rhetoric and Reality in the American Revolution" (1966), "Conspiracy and the Paranoid Style: Causality and Deceit in the Eighteenth Century" (1982), and "Interests and Disinterestedness in the Making of the Constitution" (1987). He was a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books and The New Republic.

He wrote the third volume of the Oxford History of the United States – Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789–1815 (2009) – a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Contributing to the anthology Our American Story (2019), Wood addressed the possibility of a shared American narrative. He focused on the idea of equality as "the most radical and most powerful ideological force" that the American Revolution unleashed. "This powerful sense of equality is still alive and well in America, and despite all of its disturbing and unsettling consequences, it is what makes us one people." Wood was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1988 and the American Philosophical Society in 1994.

Lewis E. Lehrman obit

Remembering Lewis E. Lehrman (1938–2026)

 

He was not on the list.

With deep sadness and eternal hope, we announce the death of Lewis E. Lehrman, co-founder and co-chairman of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Lew passed on Wednesday, March 11, 2026, at his home in Greenwich, Connecticut, surrounded by his family, after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. He was 87.

Widely regarded as a renaissance man, Lew was the grandson of immigrants who over the course of an extraordinarily fruitful life achieved success as a businessman, civic leader, policy advocate, and philanthropist, while also making enduring contributions as a writer, historian, public intellectual, and institution builder. His greatest joy and happiness was in his 60-year marriage to his beloved wife Louise, and the family they created together, including five children—Leland, John, Thomas, Eliza, and Peter—fifteen grandchildren and two great-grandchildren, all of whom survive him. In his autobiography, Lew wrote that “my life—so much of what I cherish—is all about Louise. She made my life worth living.”

In the late 1980s, Lew formed a partnership with his friend Richard Gilder that would eventually create institutions and programs that would touch the lives of millions of people. Under Lew’s strategic direction, and fueled by Dick’s generous financial support, they built the Gilder Lehrman Collection, which would become the largest collection of rare American manuscripts in private hands in the country, and the core asset of their later initiatives. In 1990, partnering with Gettysburg College, Lew and Dick founded the Lincoln Prize, which because of its unprecedented size—$50,000—helped elevate the whole field of Abraham Lincoln and Civil War studies, as well as book prizes across the publishing world. In 1994, they founded the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History to conduct their first teacher seminar, on the Transatlantic Slave Trade, led by David Brion Davis at Yale. Over the next thirty years, the Institute would grow and diversify to a point where Lew regarded it as his most important legacy, after his own family.

From childhood, Lew was a person of action and of ideas. A multi-sport athlete and natural leader as a schoolboy, Lew graduated from the Hill School in Pennsylvania and then Yale University, where he majored in History while also pursuing interests in literature, philosophy, and politics. He was awarded a Carnegie Teaching Fellowship in his final year at Yale, before completing an MA in History at Harvard, where he was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow. Though he suspended his promising academic career to return to help build the family business back home in Pennsylvania, and then to serve in the US Army, Lew never lost his deep interest in history and his passion for ideas at the highest level.

The family business emerged as “Rite Aid,” which went public in 1968, with Lew as President and largest shareowner. The company grew rapidly, growing ten-fold in just eight years. Lew continued as President until 1977, and Chair of the Executive Committee until 1981, when he resigned from all positions in order to run for Governor of New York.

Lew’s campaign for the governorship made history. A political outsider who had never held office, Lew earned the nomination of the Republican, Conservative and Statewide Independent parties and mounted a powerful campaign. To the surprise of many, Lew came within 3% of defeating the Democratic candidate, Mario Cuomo. Analysts afterwards noted that while Cuomo carried heavily Democratic New York City by a wide margin, Lew actually carried 53 of the 57 upstate counties. Significantly, supporters of both men recalled the high level of civility and intellectual exchange that characterized their debates. In later years the two men collaborated on historical projects centered on Abraham Lincoln, whom they both admired ardently.

Through the 1980s, Lew continued to offer policy advice on economic issues to members of the Reagan administration and Republican congressional leaders. At President Reagan’s request, Lew served for three years as the founding Chairman of Citizens for America, a national civic organization focused on economic and defense policies. Meanwhile, Lew remained involved with the Lehrman Institute, a think tank he had founded in 1972 to promote an interdisciplinary approach to the study of public policy and which had partnered with the Association Jacques Rueff to establish a Jacques Rueff Memorial Prize in honor of the French economist and statesman (and former Minister of Finance for Charles de Gaulle). Europe’s most eloquent proponent for the gold standard and monetary order, Rueff had become Lew’s most important intellectual mentor and a close friend during the 1970s. He also served on the boards of the American Enterprise Institute, the Heritage Foundation, and the Manhattan Institute where he participated in the development of conservative economic and national defense policies. A steadfast advocate for a return to the gold standard, Lew co-authored with Rep. Ron Paul The Case for Gold: A Minority Report of the U.S. Gold Commission in 1982, a topic to which he would return repeatedly in his later writings. The broad range of Lew’s intellectual and cultural interests is reflected in the other institutions he supported. At various times, he served as Chair of the Yale University Committee on Humanities, and as a trustee of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the Morgan Library, and the New-York Historical Society.

A major personal turning point came in the mid-1980s. Having become interested in Christianity while a student at Yale, over time Lew heard a calling to the Catholic Church. Born and raised Jewish, he studied the faith in depth and discussed his decision at length with friends and family, and then, perhaps also moved by meeting with Pope John Paul II in Rome in 1983, Lew was baptized and confirmed a Catholic at St. Thomas More Church in New York in 1985. He remained a devout Catholic to the end of his life, inspired by the witness of Pope Leo XIII, St. John Paul II, and St. Teresa of Calcutta, who influenced his thought and writings regarding the Declaration of Independence, the dignity of the human person, and Catholic social teaching.

In 1987 Lew returned to the business world, joining Morgan Stanley and eventually serving as Managing Director and chief operating officer of Morgan Stanley Asset Management. In that role, he oversaw investment portfolios for institutions and individuals, while developing new investment strategies particularly in international markets. Propelled by his success at Morgan Stanley, in 1990 he left to join as Chairman of Lehrman Bell Mueller Cannon, an economic forecasting and political analysis firm and to found his own investment company, Ten Squared, based in Greenwich, which was later succeeded by L. E. Lehrman & Company, the firm he headed until his death.

In 1997, Lew and Dick founded the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale and launched the Frederick Douglass Book Prize, to honor the best book in the field each year. At the same time, they decided to donate their collection of American documents, valued at more than $250 million, to the Gilder Lehrman Institute. They charged the Institute with using the Collection to improve the teaching and learning of American history at every level, from grade school through high school and college, and among the general public. Under the leadership of President James G. Basker, a Barnard College, Columbia University professor whom Lew and Dick recruited to join the effort, the Gilder Lehrman Institute has grown to become the nation’s leading nonprofit working in history and civics education, serving more than 38,000 schools and 107,000 teachers—and through them, more than 12 million K–12 students. It has become a national presence, serving schools in all fifty states.

With Lew’s encouragement, two more book prizes were added, the George Washington Prize in 2005 and the Military History Prize in 2013. Lew served on the boards of all four, every year bringing his wealth of knowledge and keen intellect to the selection process, and then delivering incisive remarks about the winning books at the awards ceremonies themselves. He thrived on the constant flow of new books and ideas, and the company of people who valued them as he did. In 2004, Lew and Dick, with their friend Roger Hertog, sponsored the Gilder Lehrman Institute in partnership with the New-York Historical Society to mount the largest exhibition ever devoted to Alexander Hamilton. To Lew’s delight, Ron Chernow’s biography of Hamilton won the inaugural George Washington Prize in 2005. And then in 2015 the Gilder Lehrman Institute began a partnership with Lin-Manuel Miranda and his family, and the producers of the Broadway musical Hamilton, to create “EDUHAM,” an educational program that by 2025 had brought the special drama of history through theater into the lives of more than one million students in New York City and across the country.

In these years, Lew also returned to his original vocation as an historian. In 2008 he authored Lincoln at Peoria, an important correction of the tendency among some historians to deny or downplay Lincoln’s opposition to slavery. In 2013, Lew published The American Founders and Lincoln “by littles”, both collections of earlier essays. Meanwhile, he wrote again on economic topics, including the enduring issues of inflation and monetary disorder, producing The True Gold Standard (2012) and Money, Gold, and History (2013). The books kept coming, including two with a focus on the virtues of great leaders in wartime: Churchill, Roosevelt, & Company: Studies in Character and Statecraft (2017) and Lincoln & Churchill: Statesmen at War (2018). Then, while fighting the debilitating effects of Parkinson’s disease, he offered his final work and autobiography, The Sum of It All (2023), calling special attention to the pivotal moment of his life, meeting his bride-to-be Louise, in a chapter titled “Walking West on East 80th.” One often found Lew happiest writing from and hosting family and friends at the homestead farm that he and Louise so joyfully nurtured over fifty years in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, which lies some 30 minutes from Gettysburg, and whose hallowed battlefield and speech by Lincoln encouraged him to the end.

Lew received many honors in his lifetime, including honorary degrees from Babson College, Marymount University (VA), St. Thomas Aquinas College, Lincoln College (IL), and Gettysburg College. Among other recognitions, he received the Cardinal Cooke Award for service to the Inner-City Scholarship Fund, as well as the William E. Simon Prize for Social Entrepreneurship from the Manhattan Institute and the Alexander Hamilton Legacy Award from the New York State Society of the Cincinnati. Crowning all of them was the National Humanities Medal, presented to Lew in the White House by President George W. Bush in 2005.

Lew remained all his life committed to education through institutions he built and led, and through his own writing, teaching, and mentoring of students of all ages. He lectured and taught at Yale, Oxford, Notre Dame, Gettysburg College, and countless other colleges and schools. At the Gilder Lehrman Collection, he rejoiced in personally showing student groups his favorite documents by Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Alexander Hamilton, and others. He offered mentorship and encouragement to hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other young people, whether the children of friends or the less privileged young people he met while lecturing and making public appearances.

Lew’s character, talent, and warm personality attracted the admiration of all who met him, from presidents and professors, to working people and schoolchildren. Those who worked for him tended to remain loyal and stay with him for many years, even decades. The same was true of his innumerable friendships, formed from childhood through his long career and into the last years of his life. Lew will be deeply missed by all those who knew him, and by the millions of others who benefited from his lifetime of good works.

Lew was supported in his final years by a team of dedicated nurses and caregivers, who were closely attentive to both his physical and spiritual wellbeing. To them the Lehrman family is forever grateful. A Mass of Christian Burial will be held at the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer (869 Lexington Ave, New York, NY 10065) on Saturday, April 11 at 10:30 a.m.

Allan Massie obit

Acclaimed novelist Allan Massie dies aged 87

 

He was not on the list.

Acclaimed novelist, journalist and literary critic Allan Massie has died aged 87, his son has confirmed.

Throughout his career Massie wrote 40 books, including about 20 novels. His work included historical books about roman emperors Augustus and Caesar, as well as wartime novels like A Question of Loyalties, The Sins of the Father and Shadows of Empire.

He also had a long career in journalism and spent 50 years as the Scotsman's chief literary critic before stepping back from the role in January due to serious illness.

Massie's family said he died peacefully on Tuesday afternoon surrounded by his children.

According to his son, the writer Alex Massie, his father had "a good and gentle end to a good and gentle life".

He said their family home was always full of books and newspapers, and that Massie worked daily at his typewriter for most of his life.

Posting on Substack, Alex Massie said: "He was a good and kind man and there are many younger writers and others for whom he has been a source of encouragement and much else besides.

"He was also - and forgive me for stressing this but it does feel important - a great father. We shall miss him greatly while being consoled that all those words do form and furnish a kind of self-made monument."

Born in Signapore in 1938 and raised in Aberdeenshire, Massie studied at Cambridge's Trinity College before settling in the Scottish Borders, where he lived for more than 40 years.

Over the decades he also wrote for The Daily Telegraph, The Sunday Times, The Scottish Daily Mail, The Glasgow Herald, The Spectator and many other publications.

His journalism covered a wide range of subjects, from literature, politics and even rugby.

In addition to his novels, he published biographies, books on Scottish culture and history, and studies of well‑known authors such as Muriel Spark and Eric Linklater.

Massie continued writing until earlier this year, when he stepped back due to what he called his "wretched cancer."

Author Ian Rankin led tributes to his fellow writer.

On X, he said: "Allan Massie was hugely important to me. One of my very first readers and champions.

"He was also an underappreciated novelist, a sharp but humane literary critic, a gentleman."

Stephen Hess obit

Remembering Stephen Hess

 

He was not on the list.

Stephen H. Hess, 1933–2026

I lost a great friend, and America lost one of its finest writer/historians, when Steve Hess passed away on Sunday morning at the age of 92.

Perhaps you don’t recognize the name. Perhaps that’s because he did not seek the limelight—and perhaps because the latest of his 25 books emerged seven years ago, a memoir that he titled Bit Player: My Life with Presidents and Ideas. But Steve was so much more than a “bit player.” He was, along with much else, one of our foremost biographers of presidents, critical observers of the election process, and students of the Washington media, as well as the White House and presidency. You’ll find a partial biography and bibliography on the Brookings website and an inadequate one on Wikipedia. Dig a bit deeper and you’ll find such seminal works as America’s Political Dynasties, The Washington Reporters, and Organizing the Presidency. The list goes on.

Yes, those were all pre-Trump and much has changed in the past few years. Steve, in recent months, would sort of shrug his shoulders when asked about Trump. He said he had stopped talking to journalists about it because there was nothing useful to say. But the last time we saw him, he also commented on a bit of light at the end of the present dark tunnel, mostly because he saw some cracks in the current edifice—and didn’t see how it could sustain itself over time. (Others have lately made similar comments.)

Steve was a classic “moderate Republican” who earned his first political spurs as a speechwriter in the Eisenhower White House. I met him in 1969 when I (a 25-year-old graduate student) followed my doctoral advisor to Washington and became part of Pat Moynihan’s team at the White House. Turned out that Steve was already there, serving as Pat’s deputy. And what a superb deputy/boss he was.

Four years later, I’m working in New Delhi, again with Moynihan (now U.S. ambassador to India), and who should turn up to visit, tour, and lecture but Steve Hess. That’s when Renu—my then fiancé—also made his acquaintance. And a year after that, as she and I were trying to figure out where back in the U.S. we might both reconnect to jobs and locate our young family, it was Steve who introduced me to Brookings, where he already was situated (and remained for half a century!). That led to our settling in the D.C. area and made possible a stateside relaunch of Renu’s medical career. We likely wouldn’t be doing what we’re doing today if it weren’t for Steve.

Who then remained a dear friend, birthday celebrant, travel companion, and brunch guest along with his wonderful wife of many decades, Beth Amster Hess. He invariably offered insights into the state of the nation, the GOP, whomever was then president, and the world beyond. He listened patiently. He replied thoughtfully. It was all very old school. And it was invariably educational for us, as well as pleasurable. Old school, yes, but never stodgy. Plus he was almost as interested in the doings and accomplishments (and challenges) of our kids and grandkids as we were.

Among the many Hess books on our shelves, in addition to his mis-titled memoir, two are particular favorites. One is his astute guide to the lost world of “campaign etiquette” (circa 1998). The other is his wonderfully insightful account of the odd-couple relationship between Moynihan and Nixon, which of course intersects with my own history.

When Steve, at 90, finally went “emeritus” at Brookings after five decades of affiliation there, the Brookings team produced a wonderful podcast series of reminisces, spanning his long and (for a guy who more or less stayed in one place) extraordinarily varied career. It repays attention both by anyone with an interest in modern American history and all who may want to learn more about a man who was so much more than a “bit player” and in so many ways. May he now rest in peace.

James A. ‘Jim’ McQuiston obit

James A. ‘Jim’ McQuiston, 75

 He was not on the list.

With deepest sorrow, we announce the unexpected passing of James A. McQuiston, a devoted father, cherished husband and proud bearer of the family name. He left our world suddenly on the evening of Dec. 6, leaving behind a legacy of love, integrity and quiet strength that will never be forgotten.

Seventy-five years ago, Jim was born in Corry, Pa., to Arthur and Veronica (Malec) McQuiston. Alongside his four sisters, he grew into the unique man he would become. Much of his early life was spent working long days, and often well into the night. An old printing press nestled in a dirt floor basement provided a rhythmic white noise for his sleeping family, while he worked until just before daybreak.

While providing for his growing family during the weekdays, he made time to play in numerous bands on the weekends and mastered countless instruments. His bandmates became his brothers-in-arms as he collected sixty years of tales.

From these humble beginnings, Jim’s life grew in wildly diverse ways marked by creativity, curiosity, and conscientiousness. Through to his last days, he maintained a work ethic that few men half his age could match. Over the years, these qualities led to numerous accomplishments that filled him and others with joy.

Initially sparked by meaningful journeys with his son, Jim later became an intrepid traveler later. He and his beloved wife Elizabeth collected stamp after stamp in their passports as they crisscrossed the world. It became routine for them to check off multiple once-in-a-lifetime “bucket-list” items within the same year. Jim and Beth shared decades of love, laughter, and adventure together. They traveled the world, played music side by side, performed in the same band, and spent countless hours talking, laughing, and simply holding hands.

All along the way, Jim collected stories by noticing things that others hadn’t, digging deeper than others could, and making nuanced & complex connections. He grew into, and beyond, what he always had been: a uniquely gifted storyteller. This naturally evolved into becoming an author, and a prolific one at that. Jim has published dozens of books and has been featured in widely read periodicals such as the Highlander. This earned him recognition among historians who valued his deep research, encyclopedic memory and trustworthy analysis.

He became a sought-after speaker, a leader in numerous international historical organizations, and earned the designation FSA-Scot granted to him by the National Museum of Scotland, which denotes his recognition as a Fellow in the prestigious Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. Moving beyond traditional historic interests and inspired by an old Reader’s Digest article he read as a child, he dove into the mysteries and “Curse of Oak Island” in Nova Scotia. The TV show of the same name yields up to 3 million viewers per week, and Jim became one of its most prominent theorists, having flown to Nova Scotia to appear on-screen each season and well over a dozen times.

With all his achievements, Jim would be the first to note that his greatest accomplishment was the remarkable relationships he had with his family and friends.  Some deaths are marked by regret for things left unsaid. Some by lingering crosswords never resolved.

But that is not the case here. Jim was openly and actively adored by his wife and children. He had the rare pleasure of being shown and told this often. Jim and Beth loved each other like teenagers discovering that their crush loves them too. For his son, Jim was more than simply the best man at his wedding. He was quite literally Jimmy’s best friend. They would regularly talk for hours on the phone. For his daughter Julee, he was the person she wanted to call every single day—the one she shared everything with and turned to for answers. He was her hero and always seemed to know exactly what she needed to hear. Sometimes, Jim would ask his son, “Have I ever told you the story about…?” And Jimmy would always answer “no,” just so he could hear his voice for a little longer.

As a father, Jim was patient and unfailingly kind, the wisest man we knew. To both his son and daughter, he offered not only love, but trust—giving us the freedom to make mistakes, while knowing he would always catch us if we stumbled. He was a storyteller in every sense, weaving wisdom, humor, music and love into every chapter of his life and sharing his stories with everyone around him. In every moment, those who knew him felt how fortunate they were to have him in their lives.

His greatest story was the life he created — one we all knew we were lucky to be written into.

Family and friends are invited to call at Bracken Funeral Home Inc., 315 N. Center St., Corry, PA 16407 on Friday, Dec. 12, from 2 to 4 p.m. and 6 to 8 p.m. and are invited to attend a funeral service there on Saturday, Dec. 13, at 11 a.m.

Dan Morgenstern obit

Dan Morgenstern, Chronicler and Friend of Jazz, Dies at 94

He wrote prolifically about the music and played an important role in documenting its history, especially in his many years with the Institute of Jazz Studies. 

He was not on the list.

I just received word from my good friend Jeff Lowenthal that Dan Morgenstern has moved to another neighborhood and we can begin the serious business of missing him.

I will let his distinguished friends compile the lists of achievements that educated and enlightened so many of us for decades. I first became of Dan’s easy majesty as a youthful record buyer: his liner notes were plain-spoken eloquent, the concise loving ruminations of a man who had given his heart, early on, to jazz. I am sure we all have our favorite Morgenstern-epigrams, committed to memory from staring at the backs of records and the paper inserts of CDs.

I believe I first encountered him in person at one of David Ostwald’s Louis-immersions at Birdland, and I approached him in the way I approached Whitney Balliett, with the reverence one gives a great teacher. And eventually he recognized something in me so I was allowed to chat with him and record his irreplaceable stories. I knew then and know now that this was a deep privilege, for I saw Dan be very impatient, even caustic, with those he felt had misrepresented his sacred music.

But between 2017 and 2019 he warmly welcomed me to his apartment on West End Avenue, and, even more, he welcomed my camera. His enthusiasms were wide-ranging, his stories unforgettable. He told tales of Tommy Benford, Al Hall, Frank Newton, Mary Lou WIlliams, Donald Lambert, Eubie Blake, Nat Lorber, Buddy Tate, Willie the Lion, Lester Young, Art Tatum, Lips Page, Buddy Tate, Gene Ramey, Coleman Hawkins, Buster Bailey, Ben Webster, Stanley Dance, Eddie Condon, Jimmie Rowles, Bunny Berigan, Lee Wiley, Teddy Wilson, Jimmy Rushing, Brew Moore, Tony Fruscella, John Carisi, Vic Dickenson, Bobby Hackett, Dill Jones, Sidney Catlett, Joe Thomas, Dick Wellstood, Kenny Davern, Buzzy Drootin, Morey Feld, Zutty Singleton, Charlie Shavers, Tommy Dorsey, Roy Eldridge, Dizzy Gillespie, Tony Parenti, Harry James, Herschel Evans, Bob Casey, Robert Clairmont, George Duvivier, Duke Ellington, Buddy Rich, James Moody, Tadd Dameron, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, Ruby Braff, John Hammond, Helen Humes, Booker Ervin, James Baldwin, Cecil Scott, Gene Ammons, Svend Asmussen, Frank Chace, Pee Wee Russell, Wild Bill Davison, Billie Holiday, Don De Micheal, George Brunis, Kenny Dorham, Randy Weston, Eddie Costa, Martial Solal, Sonny Stitt, Lee Konitz, Dexter Gordon, Artie Shaw, Willis Conover, Symphony Sid Torin, Joe Wilder, Count Basie, Cozy Cole, Perry Como, Milt Hinton, Benny Goodman, Tommy Flanagan, Stan Getz, Benny Goodman, Jack Purvis, Lena Horne, Fats Waller, Ira Gitler, Django Reinhardt, Ella Fitzgerald, Art Hodes, Tubby Hayes, Clark Terry, Slim Gaillard, Pops Foster, Sandy Williams, Bennie Morton, Jack Purvis, Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Jaki Byard, Jerry Newman, and of course Louis. Also delightful stories of record collecting, of Fifty-Second Street, of being “under the influence.”

I am sure I left some names and subjects out. But, as I said, it was a privilege. He hadn’t known every one of those artists first-hand, but he had seen and spoken to most of them. Obviously his view of jazz was heroically embracing: he got excited about Booker Ervin and Donald Lambert, Pops Foster and Jaki Byard. And he was generous: I can recall only one musician he didn’t want to talk about, for reasons that meant a good deal to him. If he hadn’t seen the person first-hand, he had insightful things to say about their recordings, their place in the great pageant of the music.

The interviews listed above (more than one hundred) are accessible on YouTube, and in them Dan lives on. I will share only two here, for reasons that will become obvious.

Morgenstern was raised in Vienna and Copenhagen and arrived in the United States in 1947. He wrote for Jazz Journal from 1958 to 1961, then edited several jazz magazines: Metronome in 1961, Jazz from 1962 to 1963, and Down Beat from 1967 to 1973. In 1976, he was named director of Rutgers–Newark's Institute of Jazz Studies, where he continued the work of Marshall Stearns and made the Institute the world's largest collection of jazz documents, recordings, and memorabilia.

Over the course of his career, Morgenstern arranged concerts (including the Jazz in the Garden series at the Museum of Modern Art); produced and hosted television and radio programs; taught jazz history at universities and conservatories; and served as a panelist for jazz festivals and awards across the U.S. and Europe.

Morgenstern is known for having been a prolific writer of comprehensive, authoritative liner notes, a sideline that garnered him eight Grammy Awards for Best Album Notes from 1973 on.

Morgenstern is the author of two books: Jazz People (1976); and Living with Jazz (2004), a reader edited by Sheldon Meyer (1926-2006). Both were winners of ASCAP's Deems Taylor Award.

In 2007, Morgenstern received the A.B. Spellman Jazz Masters Award for Jazz Advocacy from the National Endowment for the Arts.

David McCullough obit

David McCullough, Pulitzer-winning historian, dies at 89

His books, including profiles of the Brooklyn Bridge and Presidents John Adams and Harry Truman, made him among the most popular and influential historians of his time.

 

He was not on the list.

David McCullough, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author whose lovingly crafted narratives on subjects ranging from the Brooklyn Bridge to Presidents John Adams and Harry Truman made him among the most popular and influential historians of his time, has died. He was 89.

McCullough died Sunday in Hingham, Massachusetts, according to his publisher, Simon & Schuster.

“David McCullough was a national treasure. His books brought history to life for millions of readers. Through his biographies, he dramatically illustrated the most ennobling parts of the American character,” Simon & Schuster CEO Jonathan Karp said in a statement.

A joyous and tireless student of the past, McCullough dedicated himself to sharing his own passion for history with the general public. He saw himself as an everyman blessed with lifelong curiosity and the chance to take on the subjects he cared most about.

His fascination with architecture and construction inspired his early works on the Panama Canal and the Brooklyn Bridge, while his admiration for leaders whom he believed were good men drew him to Adams and Truman. In his 70s and 80s, he indulged his affection for Paris with the 2011 release “The Greater Journey” and for aviation with a best-seller on the Wright Brothers that came out in 2015.

He had the most recognizable presence of any historian, his fatherly baritone known to fans of PBS’s “The American Experience” and Ken Burns’ epic “Civil War” documentary. “Hamilton” author Ron Chernow once called McCullough “both the name and the voice of American history.”

A non-academic, McCullough was not loved by all reviewers, who accused him of avoiding the harder truths about his subjects and of placing storytelling above analysis. “McCullough’s main weakness is one he shares with Truman: he occasionally fails to wrestle with the moral complexities of policy,” Walter Isaacson once wrote in Time magazine.

Interviewed in 2001 by The Associated Press, McCullough responded to criticism that he was too soft on Truman and others by saying that “some people not only want their leaders to have feet of clay, but to be all clay.”

But even peers who found flaws in his work praised his kindness and generosity. And millions of readers, and the smaller circle of award givers, welcomed him above all others. For years, from a wireless cottage on the grounds of his house on Martha’s Vineyard, McCullough completed works on a Royal Standard typewriter that changed minds and shaped the marketplace.

He helped raise the reputations of Truman and Adams, and he started a wave of best-sellers about the American Revolution, including McCullough’s own “1776.”

McCullough received the National Book Award for “The Path Between the Seas,” about the building of the Panama Canal; and for “Mornings on Horseback,” a biography of Theodore Roosevelt; and Pulitzers for “Truman,” in 1992, and for “John Adams” in 2002.

“The Great Bridge,” a lengthy exploration of the Brooklyn Bridge’s construction, was ranked No. 48 on the Modern Library’s list of the best 100 nonfiction works of the 20th century and is still widely regarded as the definitive text of the great 19th century project. Upon his 80th birthday, his native Pittsburgh renamed the 16th Street Bridge the “David McCullough Bridge.”

 

McCullough also was a favorite in Washington, D.C. He addressed a joint session of Congress in 1989 and in 2006 received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Politicians frequently claimed to have read his books, especially his biographies of Truman and Adams.

Jimmy Carter cited "A Path Between the Seas″ as a factor in pushing for the 1977 treaties which returned control of the Panama Canal to Panama. Barack Obama included McCullough among a gathering of scholars who met at the White House soon after Obama was elected.

The historian was non-partisan for much of his life, but spoke out against Donald Trump in 2016, leading a group of historians that included Burns and Chernow in denouncing the Republican presidential nominee as a “monstrous clown with a monstrous ego.” McCullough also had one emphatic cause: education. He worried that Americans knew too little about history and didn’t appreciate the sacrifices of the Revolutionary era.

He spoke often at campuses and before Congress, once telling a Senate Committee that because of the No Child Left Behind act “history is being put on the back burner or taken off the stove altogether in many or most schools, in favor of math and reading.”

McCullough was active in the preservation of historical regions. He opposed the building of a residential tower near the Brooklyn Bridge and was among the historians and authors in the 1990s who criticized the Walt Disney Company’s planned Civil War theme park in a region of northern Virginia of particular historical significance.

“We have so little left that’s authentic and real,” McCullough said at the time. “To replace what we have with plastic, contrived history, mechanical history is almost sacrilege.”

Lyon Gardiner Tyler Jr. obit

Lyon Gardiner Tyler Jr. dies 175 years after his grandfather, John Tyler, left the White House

 

He was not on the list.

For many Americans, going two generations back takes them to World War II.

For Lyon Gardiner Tyler Jr., who died September 26, two generations stretched to a century earlier, when steam locomotives ruled the land and his grandfather was 10th president of the United States.

Tyler, 95, was the grandson of John Tyler, who served as president from 1841 to 1845.

He died from complications of Alzheimer's disease. A younger brother is among his survivors.

That someone in the 21st century could have a grandfather who knew Thomas Jefferson can be attributed to late-in-life paternity, second wives and longevity in his family: Three generations of Tyler men spanned an incredible 230 years.

While Tyler, a World War II veteran, lawyer and history professor at the Virginia Military Institute and The Citadel, was proud of his ancestor and spoke about him, it was not what defined his life.

His daughter, Susan Selina Pope Tyler, said Thursday that her father was a humble and compassionate man of faith who mentored others.

"He was kind and loving to everyone, even the marginalized," Susan Tyler wrote in remarks planned for a memorial service next week, which she shared with CNN.

"I've had many share with me how my father affected their lives, through his advice or his practical help."

Tyler lived in Franklin, Tennessee, at the time of his passing. He grew up in Virginia. His younger brother, Harrison Ruffin Tyler, 91, is now the last surviving grandson of the president.

John Tyler was elected vice president in 1840, but he was thrust into the role of commander-in-chief when President William Henry Harrison died just one month into office. His detractors consequently called him "His Accidency."

While most historians don't place him high in the pantheon of presidents, Tyler's family said he should be remembered for his honesty and integrity -- even if it cost him politically.

President Tyler, who served one term, fathered 15 children. His first wife, Letitia, had eight children before dying in 1842, and second wife Julia had seven. John Tyler was 63 when son Lyon Gardiner Tyler Sr. was born.

Lyon Sr., who went on to become president of William & Mary, was 71 when Lyon Jr. was born to his second wife.

The younger Lyon was a lawyer before turning to an academic career.

While John Tyler was a slave owner, his great-granddaughter Susan Tyler said her father and late mother, Lucy Jane Pope Tyler, championed civil rights.

Lyon Tyler Jr. himself had a bit of humor about being related to a US president.

"I heard too much about presidents growing up," he wrote in one speech he delivered. He related that when he was three or four, a woman asked, "Are you going to be President when you grow up?" He answered, 'I'll bite your head off.'" Then she asked, "And what will you do with the bones?" He told her, "I'll spit 'em out!"

Susan Tyler said her father took the family's fame in stride.

"Dad used to be asked if he knew John Tyler. He would always reply, 'I'm not that old' and he would laugh. He had a great sense of humor."