Hathaway, Richard O., 1934-2005.

Richard Oliver Hathaway was born on April 13, 1934, in Boston, Massachusetts, the middle child of Lloyd Arnold and Florence Bliss (Ives) Hathaway. Richard Hathaway attended Bates College from 1951 until he graduated in 1955 with a bachelor's degree cum laude in history. He was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. After graduation, Hathaway entered Northwestern University in Chicago for his doctoral degree in history. He was awarded a master's degree in 1956, having been unable to produce an acceptable doctoral thesis on John Davis Long of Maine, Secretary of the Navy under President McKinley. He then taught at Bowdoin College in Maine and did a stint in the peace movement in Boston before arriving in Vermont in 1965 to teach at Goddard College in Plainfield. In his 40-odd years of teaching in the Adult Degree program at Goddard and Vermont Colleges, he attracted a large following among his students and colleagues. In 2004 he was awarded a Doctor of Humane Letters by The Union Institute & University which at that time owned Vermont College. He authored more than 300 articles, essays, book reviews, and commentaries and served as a humanities scholar with the Vermont Humanities Council, president of the Vermont Labor History Society, and trustee of the Vermont Historical Society.

"Dick" Hathaway was known locally as a "larger-than-life kind of person." He was described in obituaries as out-going, generous, energetic, inspiring, compassionate, intelligent, funny, charismatic, a social activist, a champion of the underdog, a mentor, "a gifted lecturer, noted historian and 'public intellectual'," and an ardent collector of books, printed materials and artifacts. His office at Vermont College was legendary, so filled with books and papers that the Montpelier Fire Department considered it a fire hazard. His fund-raising work as a witty auctioneer made him a popular figure in the greater community as well.

Dick Hathaway and his wife, Ruth, had two children, Sarah and David, plus two children from Ruth's previous marriage, Peter Wires and Nancy Wires Cunningham. They made their home in Montpelier, Vermont where Dick Hathaway died on September 3, 2005, at the age of 71.

From the description of Richard O. Hathaway papers, 1951-1990 1950-1955. (Vermont Historical Society). WorldCat record id: 82137265