Kurt Philip Tauber

Regretfully, I must announce my demise on Thursday, January 25, 2024 at the age of 101. It is not only regrettable but also inconvenient not only for me but above all for my daughter Gwen, however, since the mortality rate of human beings tends to be 100%, to complain about it is both useless and in bad taste. Instead, I'll demonstrate how a person of average talent can achieve, with good luck, a most satisfactory, joyful life that, over a period of 5+ decades (1944-1998), even reached the level of happiness.

It all started with the lucky break of being born (in Vienna, Austria) into the loving and adequately prosperous family of Richard and Anny (Kohn) Tauber and my 2 year old sister Kitty, on October 6th, 1922. (Kitty, incidentally, remained my best friend until her death in 2018)
In 1938, when Hitler annexed Austria, it was my good fortune to receive an affidavit from my father's older brother Fritz in Melrose, Massachusetts, which enabled me to emigrate to the United States in 1939. My uncle and his wonderful, Southern-belle wife Wanda took in, beside me, two of my cousins from Vienna.

It turned out to be a stroke of good luck when my uncle's plan to enter me into Harvard College right away was thwarted by the admissions Dean who, not unreasonable, suggested that I learn English before matriculating. For that to happen, I was sent for one year to Melrose High School where I met and fell in love with Esther May Moss, a classmate, who five years later became my wife, despite the bigoted disapproval of both our families.

Three unhappy Harvard undergraduate years followed. For financial and other reasons I compressed the four-year curriculum into three years by taking additional courses every semester and during the Summers. Also to save money, I had to live at home and commute to Cambridge. Moreover, I persisted in majoring in a subject (Chemistry) in which I had soon lost interest and in any case, was not particularly good. Add this to the misery that my courtship of Esther had to be clandestine.

Drafted into the Army Air Corps, in 1943, I was kept a safe distance from enemy aircraft and soldiers. While my contribution to the war effort was negligible, these Army years provided the mental leisure to think seriously about what I wanted to do with my life. These were also the years when Esther and I became of age and shortly thereafter married.

In 1946, Honorable Discharge in hand and the G.I. Bill in back, I put Fortuna to a severe test when I asked Harvard's Department of Government to accept me in their Ph.D. program, with an S.B. in Chemistry and not a single course in Political Science on my undergraduate transcript! They did, and four years later I finished with a dissertation of 570 typed pages. The examining committee apparently was so daunted that they awarded me the Chase Prize.

The next five years at the University of Buffalo were marked by feverish research and writing activities, typical for still-untenured academics. But far more important and creative, it was in Buffalo that Esther and I -- after eleven years of marriage -- celebrated, on the happiest day of our lives, the birth of our daughter Gwen. In fact, I regard my genetic contribution to the creation of that magnificent human being as my most significant accomplishment.

My hectic writing activity paid off in the Winter 1959/60, in the form of a job interview at Williams College. They hired me and I taught there in the Political Science Department for the next 33 years. I was fortunate to receive my grants -- including two Fullbrights and a Guggenheim -- that helped me to publish a two-volume study of post WWII German nationalism. Unsurprisingly, the 1600 page work has been read by only a few people. My father, rightly, thought that it would make a good door stop.

The Vietnam war years were for me as exciting intellectually as they were politically. Radicalized by the events abroad and at home, I began to study and appropriate the complex, sophisticated and compelling social theory of Karl Marx. His enormous corpus of work now buttressed cognitively and ethically my instinctive abhorrence of capitalism. Moreover, it jibed well with my life-long ebullient atheism.

Following my retirement, in 1993, Esther and I had five more splendid years before she succumbed to a chronic heart defect at the age of 76. That loss left a wound that never healed. Happiness, as we had understood it, was now no longer an option. But, pleasures and joys still marked my life. As before, I found these pleasures in non-fiction books, classical music, great art, interesting conversations, gourmet cooking and social entertaining. But at the most intensely satisfying level there was the unfailing joy of being with my little family or even watching from afar to see Gwen, my Dutch son-in-law Jan Jaap Dondorp and my granddaughter Caitlin flourish.

I cherished close friendships throughout my life, both in Austria and America. In the case of friends who died before me, I treasured the friendship of their children. As I became old, members of my and Esther's families, who previously had been merely "family" or even "distant family", became warm friends. These bonds of affection connected me with the two cousins who shared my first years in the U.S. and with their families. Those bonds encompassed Esther's much-loved brother and his wife and children. This transformation of family into cherished friends included even a cousin-once-removed, whom I did not know until a few years before my death, but whose belated friendship enriched my life. I also want to acknowledge with much gratitude the friendship of a good many of my former students and of some of my former and much younger colleagues.

Late in 2012 I made the mistake of falling down the stairs and becoming a cripple. That had few upsides, but one surely was the discovery that kindness and compassion are widely shared traits among the Williamstown population.

This proved to be particularly true among my local friends on whom I had to depend ever more heavily. Among them my deepest gratitude and affection went to Adriana Millenaar Brown and Daniel D. O'Connor, whose touching solicitude and generosity were boundless. Without them, these last years of crippeldom would have  been far more difficult and the quality of my life far poorer. This is also the time and place to thank the staff of Sweetwood of Williamstown for their competency, kindness and ever-cheerful helpfulness. A veritable tour de force. To my very pleasant fellow residents, I bid you a posthumous cheerio with many heartfelt thanks for all the pleasures of our social engagement, both occasional and frequent. Last, but not least, I want to acknowledge the dogged efforts of my trainer, Sam Douglas, to retard the decline of my physical capacities. The carefully calibrated training sessions left me exhausted, grateful and chuckling.

All told, my life was a wondrously fortunate, joyful and happy life which I left without only one profound, painful regret: I never adequately expressed my gratitude for my beloved wife’s selflessness in enabling my academic career and for providing the deep comforts of a loving home.

Finally, my critical spirit compels two skeptical questions: did I do much good? I don’t know, but at least I can say in good conscience that intentionally I did no harm. Was it socially a useful life? Perhaps – if it is considered of some use to have held a few thousand young adults to analyze the complexities and contradictions of our socio-political environment, and to encourage them to think critically, with minds open to the possibility of a juster world.

Funeral notice

The Hanson, Walbridge and Shea Funeral Home in Bennington Vt. has handled my case and you can find my obituary on their website as well, should you wish to read it ever again: https://www.sheafuneralhomes.com/obits

The funeral will be held at the Thompson Memorial Chapel in Williamstown at 860 Main St., on February 8, 2024, beginning at 12:45. The flammable parts of my body – in the ecologically useful form of ashes – will be buried in the Williams College Cemetery, Williamstown, Ma., beside Esther’s ashes after the service. A reception shall follow at the Williams Faculty Club on 968 Main St. in Williamstown from 2-4pm.

If you feel sorry that I died, or sympathize with those who might be mourning, and wish to say so, please come to my funeral or email my daughter Gwen at [email protected] or snail mail her at Nieuwe Kerkstraat 401, 1018VK Amsterdam, NL, but e-mailing is cheaper, faster and more ecological.