Harlan Berkley Peabody, Jr., Ph.D., 80, died peacefully at home on Fox Farm in Auburn, N.H. on February 22, 2009. Born in Providence, R.I., on January 3, 1929 to Harlan B. Peabody and Persis Ann (Richardson) Peabody, he was a resident of Auburn, N.H. and Salem, Mass.
Family includes his beloved wife of 55 years, Joanna Nichols (Taylor) Peabody; five children, Sarah Ropes (William A.) Turnbaugh of Wakefield, R.I.; Moses Peabody of Auburn, N.H.; Samuel Richardson Peabody of Beverly, Mass.; Persis Elizabeth (Harry C.) Robbins of Haverhill, Mass.; Dr. Mary Foster (John M.) Richards of Reading, Mass., and five beloved grandchildren: Harry Clark, Joanna Katharine, and Nancy Elizabeth Robbins; Laura Margaret and Ellen Pettingill Richards.
Dr. Peabody graduated with highest honors from Classical High School in Providence, R.I. He earned his Bachelor's degree Phi Beta Kappa from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, where he studied under R.P.T. Coffin and T. Means. He was valedictorian of the Class of 1950. He gave his commencement address in Latin and was winner of the Nathaniel Goold Prize and the Sewall Greek Prize.
Dr. Peabody earned his Master's and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at Harvard University where he studied oral tradition with professors Albert B. Lord, Eric Havelock, Harry Levin, Zeph Stewart, and others. His doctoral dissertation on Hesiod's Works and Days was awarded the 1961 Monograph Prize in the Humanities by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He expanded this work into a major contribution to the study of the techniques of oral tradition, under the title The Winged Word, published by SUNY Albany Press in 1975.
During his academic career, Dr. Peabody was professor of comparative literature and Ancient Greek at Bowdoin; Moorhead State College, Moorhead, Minn.; and the State University of New York at Albany. Dr. Peabody collaborated with computer pioneer David Packard and others on the early computerization of classical texts and analysis of oral traditions. He served as assistant to Maine's Pulitzer prize-winning poet Robert P. Tristram Coffin and later wrote the retrospective bibliographic essay of the poet's works for PMLA. He was proud of the accomplishments of his students over the years, among them Lou Bolchazy, of Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers, and Maine novelist Robert Froese.
Dr. Peabody was a well-known and popular professional organist and choir director for over 60 years. He performed organ recitals and concerts throughout New England and served as organist, choir director, and substitute organist in greater Boston, southern New Hampshire, and Maine. He was a member of the Boston and Merrimac Chapters of the American Guild of Organists and ranked nationally in Guild competitions early in his career. He had wanted to learn to play the organ ever since he was a small boy, walking outside a Providence church with his mother, when he felt the vibrations from the instrument. He started on the violin until his hands were big enough for the piano and organ.
Dr. Peabody wrote choral compositions, including anthems for his "Four Living Creatures" of St. John's Episcopal Church in Winthrop, Mass. He served as chapel organist at Bowdoin during his undergraduate years, organist at St. Stephen's Church in Wiscasset, Maine, St. Stephen's Methodist Church in Marblehead (where he was honored in November 2008 by an organ recital for his work building a pipe organ for the church), The First Church in Salem, Unitarian, of which he was a member, and scores of other churches throughout New England. His organ music was broadcast over WESX in Salem. In the 1970s, he performed all of Rheinberger's then obscure pieces for organ over a series of years and helped to popularize the German composer. He played harpsichord and celeste on Midwest tours with the Fargo-Moorhead Symphonia.
Little Known Fact: Berkley met Josie through music. He and his sidekick, tenor and fellow Bowdoin undergraduate Fred Weidner, performed at Josie's uncle's funeral in the late 1940s and got to know Josie's aunt, Susan Nichols Pulsifer of Little Ponds, Harpswell, Maine, where Berkley later met Josie in a wild strawberry patch.
With his green thumb, Dr. Peabody delighted in propagating plants. His private stock boasts double hibiscus of every color, plus exotic flora and ivy acquired on many walks throughout his travels. His children grew up on fresh raspberries, grapes, fruits, rhubarb and vegetables from his gardens in Salem. He was also a talented and innovative cook and entertaining host.
Little known fact: Berkley aspired to become a naval architect and as a young man had hoped to attend the Webb School in New York. This plan was vetoed by his parents, who were both teachers, because of the Depression.
In spite of this change in career path, he pursued architecture as a sideline, drafted beautiful architectural drawings and plans for formal gardens, and constructed numerous architectural models. His children used to play with them as dollhouses. He designed wallpaper and hand-painted it in several family houses. In the late 1970s, he was described as "an excellent draw man" by neighbor and Salem architect Richard Scagliotti, son-in-law of Manchester Union Leader editor William Loeb. As Henry Wood, Boston architect and friend, said after admiring one of Berkley's models, "You need to keep an eye on these amateurs."
In 1957 Dr. and Mrs. Peabody moved to Salem, Mass. to serve as resident curators of an ancestral home, the Peirce-Nichols House, then owned by the Essex Institute. Both he and his wife's forebears had lived in Salem, Mass. since its founding, and so they chose this city in which to make their home and raise their children. Dr. Peabody's roots are in common with philanthropist George Peabody, both stemming on New England soil from 17th- century patriarch Francis Peabody, who sailed from England and settled in Topsfield in the 1630s. Other notable family ancestors include the Peabody Sisters (whose Salem home Berkley saved in the 1970s), Salem sea captains Joseph Peabody, Nathaniel Bowditch, Ichabod Nichols, and Jerathmeel Peirce.
Dr. Peabody was an outspoken champion of historic preservation and was a long-time member and supporter of many local and national organizations. These included the George Peabody House Museum, the Peabody Historical Society and Brooksby Farm, the Essex Institute (now Peabody-Essex Museum), the National Trust for Historic Preservation, Historic New England (SPNEA), North Bennet Street School, the Wentworth-Gardner & Tobias Lear Houses Association of Portsmouth, N.H., the American Philological Association, the Nathaniel Hawthorne Society, the Middleton Historical Society, the Hartwell Family Association, the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, the New England Hosta Society, and the Salem Athenaeum. Many of the organizations he was active in have family connections.
Dr. Peabody was an accomplished painter and member of the Copley Society of Boston, where his artwork was chosen for display at members' shows. Early on he worked in water colors and oils. His most recent series of paintings were abstract portraits, executed primarily in acrylics. For his children and grandchildren he wrote and hand-illustrated stories and painted alphabet blocks with layers of linguistic meaning, all color-coded.
Little known fact: Berkley enjoyed traveling and always made the travel route as interesting and adventurous as the destination. Summer vacations with his family included racing to just the right spot, at just the right time, to view the total eclipse of the sun in 1972 on the one strip of dunes on Prince Edward Island that was not clouded over.
In the early 1990s, Dr. Peabody realized a life-long dream by purchasing and restoring the Philip T. Clark, a liberty launch assigned to the aircraft carrier Leyte that served in World War II in the Pacific. Philip is a 42-foot wooden boat built in 1943 at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in New York. The family heritage and interest in Salem's China trade peaked in 1998 when he and his wife, their son Moses, and cat Caesar, safely braved high seas and Hurricane Bonnie to escort the National Park Service's replica of Mrs. Peabody's great-great-great grandfather's ship, the three-masted square rigger Friendship, on her maiden voyage from her Hudson River shipyard to Salem Harbor. Two years later the same crew sailed to Brunswick for Berkley's 50th Bowdoin reunion. Berkley's passion for life and love of beauty, family, and learning will be deeply missed.
Services: Burial services will be private. A public celebration of Berkley's life and art will be held at the Osborn-Salata House, 33 Washington St., Peabody, Mass., on Sunday, March 29, 2009, 1 - 4 p.m. In lieu of flowers, contributions in Dr. Peabody's memory may be directed to the George Peabody House Museum, 205 Washington Street, Peabody, Mass. 01960.