We have lost treasured authors and friends this month. We mourn their passing, and celebrate their lives.
Mr. Joseph Garland passed away on August 30, 2011. We first met Joe in the 1980s when he championed the Schooner Adventure’s return to Gloucester; he helped us research and put together the Web site for the ship in the early 1990s, finding stunning period photos so we could build a “Then and Now” photo essay of the ship. He published a new edition of his tremendously useful “Gloucester Guide” with us in a successful collaborative effort. Joe was a World War II veteran, sailor, and local celebrity. In all, he was the author of 24 published works, including “Lone Voyager” (1963), a classic among the likes of Rudyard Kipling’s “Captains Courageous,” which tells the story of Howard Blackburn’s survival through foggy, freezing waters when he rowed for five days to the shore of Newfoundland, his hands frozen to the oars. This classic book is still in print with Simon & Schuster, and recently came out in a Norwegian edition. Throughout his 65-year writing career, he wrestled with his “war book,” a collective memoir of his US Army I&R Platoon, as it made its way from Anzio to Dachau. We published “Unknown Soldiers: Reliving WWII in Europe” in 2008 with Protean Press (an imprint of OBS). Joseph Garland is survived by his wife Helen; step-children Anna, Janet, Alison, and Robert; daughters Susan and Peggy; eleven grandchildren; and a great-grandson. He would have turned 89 this month.
Mr. Louis Post, a retired technical writer and a prospective author for Protean Press, passed away last September 18, 2010, while publication was still in the planning stages. A former oceanographer, he wrote “Far From All Shores: A Log of the Atlantis” as his memoir of his time at sea on the research vessel out of Woods Hole—a rich book that depicts both what oceanographic research was like on a day to day basis in the 1940s and the deeper story of how men’s personalities and perceptions change when afloat for weeks at a time. Louis Post is survived by his wife Rita; his children Mark, Mary, Andrew, Robert, John, Judy, and Janice; ten grandchildren; and one great-grandchild. He was 89 years old.
Mr. Michael Cohn, an anthropologist, museum educator, and author of the “Simon series” for young adult readers, passed away September 13, 2011. His series of four books follow a young Jewish boy named Simon from Viking Norway, all around the Scandinavian seas and land, illustrating his adventures in authentic detail only an avid archeologist and museum curator could offer, and supplemented by drawings by master model-maker Erik Ronnberg. Michael Cohn is survived by his wife Susan. He was 86 years old.
Mr. Carl Olgesby, political activist, writer, and former President of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), passed away September 13, 2011. Carl was radicalized on the day John Kennedy was assassinated. A tech writer at the defense contractor Bendix Corporation, a company actively supplying the US military in Vietnam, Carl was alerted to Kennedy’s death by his secretary. Immediately he sought out the janitor of his office building, asking him to put the flag at half-mast to honor the passing of the President. The janitor said he couldn’t do that without approval from the company executives. Carl sought out these men, who were gathered in the executive conference room, the door ajar. Carl looked in and saw them sitting around the table, a bottle of Chevas Regal in front of them, toasting the death of Kennedy. He quit his job that day, and went on to form the Assassination Information Bureau in Cambridge, MA. Author of books on subjects such as JFK’s assassination, conspiracies, and the anti-war movement from 1969 to 2008, Carl sometimes wrote for OBS and in that capacity ghostwrote “Buying your Dream House” for Bob Vila. Carl Olgesby is survived by his partner Barbara Webster; children Aron, Shay, and Caleb from his first marriage; and five grandchildren. He was 76 years old.
We will miss, remember, and reread these men: our friends and authors.
Links:
http://www.gloucestertimes.com/local/x1078444438/Joe-Garland-1922-2011 – Joe Garland, Gloucester Daily Times
http://sharon.patch.com/announcements/obituary-louis-a-post – Louis Post, Sharon Patch
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/nytimes/obituary.aspx?n=michael-cohn&pid=153641772 – Michael Cohn, Legacy Obituaries
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/14/us/carl-oglesby-antiwar-leader-in-1960s-dies-at-76.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=carl%20oglesby&st=cse – Carl Olgesby, New York Times