ctwood_memorial ([info]ctwood_memorial) wrote,
@ 2004-02-16 14:42:00
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In Memory of Charles T. Wood
The Congregatio de Silvescendo sadly reports that Charles T. Wood, professor emeritus of history at Dartmouth College, learned and astute scholar, effervescent and inspiring teacher, dear friend, and the kindest man of great wit, died unexpectedly during the night of February 11, 2004. A memorial service will be held on the Dartmouth campus Saturday, February 28, 2004, 2:00 p.m. in Rollins Chapel and a memorial fund has been established at Dartmouth, to which contributions in lieu of flowers should be sent.

We encourage his many students, colleagues and friends to share their memories of this remarkable man here. And, although we grieve with his family, we also hope to collect stories that reflect his wit, his humor, and his keen eye for the absurd, along with the many ways in which he profoundly affected our lives.

Laura Blanchard
Bonnie Wheeler
Congregatio de Silvescendo

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Remembering Charlie
(Anonymous)
2004-02-16 12:06 pm UTC (link)
This site is designed so that Charlie's friends and former students can share Charlie-stories. We will then collect them and present them to his family during the memorial service on February 28, 2004.

I begin with an image of Charlie chuckling. An idea would 'strike' him ('you know, it's just struck me…' was his favorite sentence-opener) and the eyes light up, the smile grow broad, the chuckle move down the throat until the laugh came from deep inside.
Bonnie Wheeler

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Re: Remembering Charlie
(Anonymous)
2004-02-16 12:25 pm UTC (link)
*nodnodnod*

Bonnie's comment reminds me of the day I met Charlie, at the Medieval Academy in Princeton in (I think) 1991.

I had made a date by letter to talk with him about the Richard III Society's William B. Schallek awards (now administered by the Medieval Academy, but Charlie was one of the charter members of the fledgling program's selection committee back in the early 1980s). I'd never laid eyes on him and was dismayed by the number of people there. Noting someone with "Dartmouth" on his nametag, I asked him if he could point Charlie out to me.

No, he replied, but he could describe him. He would be wearing a blue blazer and khaki pants (gee, thanks, I thought, looking at several hundred men similarly attired). "But the real way you'll recognize him," the man (a music historian) told me, "is by his deep bass voice. And his laugh. I covet his laugh."

And so it was. I heard that bass laugh across a hotel lobby and found him by sound.

He was a good friend to the Richard III Society, even though he once described Richard to me as "guilty as hell and a dim bulb to boot." He was instrumental in shaping the scholarship fund, and he was enormously helpful and kind to me in more ways than I could possibly count.

Laura Blanchard

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Charles T Wood
(Anonymous)
2004-02-19 01:35 pm UTC (link)
I never knew Professor Wood, but as a member of the Richard III Society, I was aware of his name and scholarship. I am sure that he will be missed by family, friends and former colleagues alike. My best wishes and condolences go to them all.

Phil Stone,
Chairman, Richard III Society

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Magnanimous!
(Anonymous)
2004-02-22 01:29 pm UTC (link)
To me, Professor Wood was like Beowulf--a slayer of "monsters" (arrogance and small-mindedness), a great scholar-teacher who always captured the gold and gave of himself willingly. I remember vividly our chatty luncheon at Dartmouth, summer 2001 (when I was a visiting professor of French there). Professor Wood did not "suffer fools gladly"--one of the last of his incomparable Harvard generation. I will really miss him! --Raymond Cormier, Longwood University (VA).

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(Anonymous)
2004-04-30 01:11 pm UTC (link)
Excellence in college teaching can be measured in many ways, but none, we might allow, is more important than a talent for inculcating a love of learning and a passion for an academic discipline. This is a gift measured less on student response surveys than it is glimpsed in an inner process of conversion whose outward sign is the changed life. Charlie Wood was of the all too rare individuals capable of working such conversions. He exemplified the man of learning so completely absorbed in his subject, beyond any ordinary sense of mastery, that the rightness and pleasure of that calling were virulently contagious. In his classes, the intellectual and political history of the Middle Ages became not only interesting, but irresistible. If only we his students could come to share the transfiguring joy, the fine wit, and the intellectual subtlety that he exuded! If only we could believe in the life of the mind and the value of intelligent inquiry the way that he did! Unlike many intellectuals, Charlie was fully committed to helping others share that belief, and this legacy will live long after him. His talents and commitment were ideally suited to the hothouse environment of the small liberal arts college. Dartmouth's perfect Harvard man--no small achievement.

Barton Palmer Dartmouth '68

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Remembering Charlie Wood
(Anonymous)
2004-05-12 08:19 am UTC (link)
Charlie was a generous scholar and friend. When I did not receive a Schallek scholarship the first time I applied, Charlie wrote me a long letter telling me that my project was worthy of an award and explaining what I needed to do to be successful in my next application. When I finally met him, I found him to be a wonderful colleague as well as a mentor. I will miss him very much.

Sharon D. Michalove, Department of History, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

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