John H. Clagett

After graduation, John reported to LEXINGTON in Hawaii. In February, 1941, he was unexpectedly ordered to a PT Boat Squadron, Brooklyn Navy Yard. His two years in various PT Boat Squadrons ended on February Ist at Guadalcanal during the Japanese evacuation of the you-know-what island when his PT 111 was sunk by shellfire during an attack, and he spent the night in the water making friends with the sharks, supported by two of his crew. Six months in San Diego Naval Hospital, where he married Marjorie, his Navy nurse, then a year at PG School in Annapolis. Back to the hospital for more skin grafts; then to USS FARGO. Retired for wounds in 1946. Entered the Foreign Service, spent three years in Oslo, Norway, then got "riffed" in 1949. Received PhD from Yale in 1954. Started teaching at Middlebury College in 1955.

Having settled in Vermont, John continued teaching Writing and English at Middlebury College until he retired as a Professor of English in 1978. Their two daughters grew up and got married. Marjorie continued her passion for gardening and flower arranging, and is now a top gardener with a beautiful and extensive garden, and a Life Judge in the National Council of State Garden Clubs. She judges flower shows and participates in seminars over much of the eastern half of the country. She collects Chinese art, having extended her knowledge of, and interest in it, during a tour to China in 1981, when such trips were a pioneering experience.

John has continued to write and has now published nineteen books, fiction and non fiction, juvenile and adult, as well as a good many short stories and articles, with some translations in Dutch, Danish, French, German, and Spanish. He regrets the lack of best sellers. Marjorie and John do a lot of skiing in the winter - still -, have taken up Scottish Country Dancing, and manage to get to Hawaii each late March and early April for three weeks, thus missing the Mud Season.

John has done some sailing in Maine. A high point in their year is the annual Castine Caper. John has had several superb sailing trips in Norway, each in July, once for three weeks. Clear, warm Gulf Stream water, a thousand islands, sunrise 0200, sunset 2200, black dark-never. No fog.

John continues to enjoy hunting and fishing, with emphasis on some wonderful weeks in Baxter Park, in Maine. He has a fine grandson with whom he is a close friend, even though he is now a sophisticated twelve and three quarters, and knows more about high tech and computers than John will ever know. John is backing him for the Naval Academy Class of 1999.

Finally, John says there is little to tell. Some one or other said that a fortunate country and a happy man have no history.

(Addendum: Obituary in The Burlington Free Press on Nov. 18, 2013.)