Frederick H. West

Frederick H. West died peacefully at his home in Manchester, Vermont on May 26, 2015. He lived a long and full life. He was born in Atlanta, Georgia and was brought up in New Orleans, where he attended local schools. He joined the Marine Corps in 1945 and served in North China through 1946. It was a pivotal experience for him, he was able to count and swear in Chinese well into to his latter years. He took his undergraduate degree in Anthropology at Tulane University, went on to earn a Masters in Archaeology at the University of Michigan, and completed his Ph. D at Louisiana State University in Human Ecology. He had a lifelong passion for prehistory and history. He took his first academic posting at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks in 1957. The far north was the focus of his professional research, first with the Kutchin people in the Brooks Range and then in prehistoric peoples in archaeological excavations, his main focus being sites in the Alaska Range foothills in the region of the Tangle Lakes, where he did some of the seminal work on the peopling of the New World. His research culminated in the publication of his master-work The Archeology of Beringia, an edited volume with 58 authors half of whom where in the collapsing Soviet Union. Besides the University of Alaska, he held posts at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Alaska Methodist University, Anchorage, Williams College, Williamstown, MA, and he retired from the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA as the Director of Archeology. Conservation and local history were some of Fred's lifelong interests. He was a founding member of the Tanana-Yukon Historical Society. He was a member of the Vermont Chapter of the Nature Conservancy, the Vermont Land Trust. He served as a trustee of the Essex Museum in Salem, MA and of the Bennington Museum in Bennington, VT. He belonged to the Club of Odd Volumes in Boston. He, with his wife and neighbors, were instrumental in the successful effort to conserve the lower acreage of the Equinox Preserve along the Flatlanders trail. Fred leaves his wife of 45 years, Constance, and four children, Maggie Hadleigh-West of New Orleans, Dickson H. West and his wife Grace of St Joe ,AR, Nicholas West of Santa Cruz, CA, and Sophie Brechu-West and her husband Antoine of Stowe, VT. He was predeceased by his sister Elisabeth Borden and his son Frederick H. West, Jr. He leaves three grandchildren, Michael Brumley and his wife Stephanie, Eleanor West, and Pierre-Felix Brechu, and two great grandchildren, Hunter and Max Brumley. A memorial celebration will be held later in the summer. Memorial donations may be made to the Bennington Museum, 75 Main Street, Bennington, VT 05201. A memorial celebration will be held later in the summer.