In Memoriam

Abstract

In Memoriam Emma Lapsansky-Werner, J. William Frost, and Charles Cherry Memorial Minute for Hugh Stewart Barbour Emma Lapsansky-Werner Hugh Stewart Barbour of Sleepy Hollow, New York, departed this life on January 8, 2021, at the age of 99. Born in Beijing, China on August 7, 1921, Hugh was the son of George Brown Barbour, a geologist renowned for his study of Chinese stratigraphy, and his wife, Dorothy Dickinson Barbour–a religious-education teacher at Hartford Theological Seminary. Inspired by the lives of his parents—who, shortly after their marriage, were dispatched by the London Missionary Society to Peking, China where they worked with the Famine Relief Commission—Hugh Barbour pursued a long and prolific intellectual and religious career as Professor of Religion at Earlham College and Professor of Church History at Earlham School of Religion. Like his parents, Hugh was a "hands-on" intellectual, serving on the Friends Historical Association publications committee, and on the editorial board of Quaker History, as well as contributing articles and book reviews to Quaker History. Often collaborating with colleagues to synthesize his extensive knowledge into texts for undergraduate and popular audiences, Hugh also teamed up with archivists and librarians to democratize access to Quaker documents. Not one to hide in an academic ivory tower, Hugh has been described by one admirer as "concerned for the contemporary world of Friends, [devoting] vast chunks of time to Indiana Yearly Meeting, and to Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting, as well as to Friends United Meeting, Friends General Conference, and Friends World Committee for Consultation. He was convinced that Friends of all types could find common ground, which sometimes [End Page 138] led him to witness in unlikely places, like the Realignment Conference in Des Moines in the early 1990s." While Google Scholar documents more than 16,000 instances of Hugh's scholarly contributions to, and intersections with, a larger scholarly community—including several widely-cited articles in Quaker History—Hugh's friends, protégés, students, colleagues and admirers also remembered his "encyclopedic knowledge of an extraordinary range of topics," and his broad grasp of "the totality of Quaker history." Awarded his doctorate in 1952, from Yale University, for his dissertation on "The Early Quaker Outlook Upon 'the World' and Society, 1647–1662," the devoted-and-distinguishedscholar Hugh published continuously—independently and collaboratively—for the next six decades. But Hugh was not only a distinguished scholar. Those who knew him celebrated his teaching, his personal kindness, and his way of being "an extraordinarily generous person, always willing to share his time, books, and suggestions for research." Beloved by his students (who often were the children of his former students!), one observer noted: "and yes, [he was loved for] his endearing absent-mindedness." The community of scholars-of-religion was much enriched by Hugh Barbour's sojourn on this earth. Hugh is survived by Sirkka, his wife of more than 60 years; by his daughters Elisa, Celia and Maida; and by three grandchildren. [End Page 139] Memorial Minute for Kenneth Carroll J. William Frost Kenneth Lane Carroll (1924–2021) will be remembered as a scholar of the Bible, an historian of Quakers, and a longtime supporter of Friends Historical Association for which he served as board member, vice-president, and president from 1989 to 2012. He endowed the Carroll prize given every three years for the most significant article in Quaker History and in his will left collections of books and archives to the Friends Historical Library of Swarthmore College and the Maryland Room of the Talbot County Free Library. His scholarship, expressed in books and dozens of articles, eschewed broad interpretations as he focused on important topics including the history of Friends on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, John Perrot, antislavery and early Irish Quakers. He also rescued individuals and topics from obscurity: Thomas Loe, Robert Southeby, the Nicolites, Elizabeth Hooten, Quakers in Venice. Born in Easton, Maryland, Carroll learned about the rough side of life early because his father became sheriff and the family lived in the same building as the jail. In his autobiography (2017), he tells of how his father saved a prisoner from a lynch mob. As a young man, he worked...