Arthur Frederick Stocker

Arthur Frederick Stocker

Arthur Frederick Stocker, 95, of Charlottesville, died suddenly, but peacefully Wednesday, January 13, 2010, at Westminster Canterbury of the Blue Ridge.

Dr. Stocker was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, January 24, 1914, the son of Harry Emilius Stocker, a Moravian minister, and Alice Belle Stratton Stocker.

The family moved to New York City in April of 1919, and Arthur Stocker received all of his elementary and high school education in the public schools of New York, being graduated from the George Washington High School in June 1930. He attended Williams College, in Williamstown, Massachusetts, from which he received his Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, in 1934, with a major in classical languages. He spent the next five years in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Harvard, where he earned a Masters of Arts in Classical Philology in 1935 and a Ph.D. in 1939. He was awarded a Sheldon Traveling Fellowship for study abroad, during the year 1939-1940, but was prevented from using it by the outbreak of the war in Europe.

His first position was that of Instructor in Greek at Bates College, in Lewiston, Maine, but his career there was cut short by the entrance of this country into World War II. He served, 1942-1946, in what was then the United States Army Air Forces, most of the time in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he was Historical Officer in the headquarters of the Second Air Force. After the war he retained his commission as a reservist, and was retired in 1974 with the rank of Colonel, United States Air Force.

His entire remaining professional career was spent at the University of Virginia, where he served in the Department of Classics as assistant professor (1946-1952), associate professor (1952-1960), and professor (1960-1984). He also served as Associate Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences from 1962 to 1966. He was chairman of the Department of Classics from 1955 to 1963 and from 1968 to 1978, and he served for several years as secretary of the Academic Faculty and secretary of the General Faculty. As a member of the faculty he was elected to the Raven Society (from which he received the Raven Award in 1977) and to Omicron Delta Kappa, which he served as faculty secretary.

He married, July 16, 1968, the late Marian West Stocker, who had been a teacher of Latin at Saint Catherine's School in Richmond most of the time since her graduation from Westhampton College in 1933. She predeceased him on July 3, 1997.

He was active in a number of professional organizations, including the Classical Association of Virginia, of which he was president 1949-1952, the Classical Association of the Middle West and South, the Southern Section of which he was president 1961-1963 and the whole of which he was president in 1971. He belonged also to the American Philological Association, the Mediaeval Academy of America, and, while still professionally active, to the Archaeological Institute of America.

He was a member of various lineage societies, including both the Sons of the American Revolution and the Sons of the Revolution, the Society of Colonial Wars in the State of Virginia, the Huguenot Society of Virginia, of which he was president 1981-1983, and the National Huguenot Society, of which he was President General 1989-1991. Memberships in other organizations include the Masons, the International Torch Club, the Retired Officers Association, the Air Force Association, and the Military Order of the World Wars. Memberships in Charlottesville include the Farmington Country Club, the Red Land Club, the Colonnade Club, and the Beacon Club. He belonged in Washington to the Army and Navy Club, in Richmond to the Commonwealth Club, and in New York to the Williams Club. He was a member of the First Presbyterian Church, in which he had served as an elder. He had been elected to Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year as an undergraduate at Williams, and twice served as president of Beta of Virginia, the chapter of Phi Beta Kappa at the University of Virginia.

He was himself an only child, had no children of his own, and while not survived by any close blood relatives, he is remembered lovingly by members of his wife's family and fondly and with great affection and deep appreciation by his former colleagues and students at the University.

A funeral service will be held 2 p.m. Wednesday, January 20, 2010, at First Presbyterian Church, Park Street, Charlottesville, followed by a reception at the church. The interment will be private at the University Cemetery.

Hill and Wood Funeral Home is handling the arrangements.

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the fund supporting the Arthur F. Stocker lectures in the Department of Classics at the University of Virginia, and should be sent to the Chairman of that Department at P.O. Box 400788, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904-4788.

Friends may sign the guest book at www.hillandwood.com


This obituary was originally published in the Daily Progress.