Charles H. Leighton

Charles H. Leighton of Durham, 80, died of septic shock on Monday, May 16, 2005 at Exeter Hospital.

He was born November 25, 1924, the son of Frederick and Bridget (Cawley) Leighton.

As a child he lived in Roxbury, Dorchester, and South Boston, and graduated from Boston English High School in 1942.

After several years in the meatpacking and linoleum industries, he returned to high school and completed additional courses needed to gain admission to college. He earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees and a Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literature, all from Harvard University.

He married Janice Barry of Billerica, MA, a co-worker at Harvard’s Widener Library, on August 20, 1955. They were divorced in 1971.

While completing his Ph.D. dissertation, he taught Spanish and French at Beverly High School in Beverly, MA. He moved to Durham in 1956 to work as an instructor in the University of New Hampshire Department of Spanish. Upon receiving his Ph.D. in 1961, he accepted a full-time faculty position in the Spanish Department at UNH, where he taught for thirty-eight years, retiring in May, 1994.

In addition to teaching Spanish, he was keenly interested in the synthesis of art, music, history, literature, and popular culture, and he originated two complementary humanities courses, “The Ancient World” and “The Modern World,” which he described as “an old-fashioned Western civilization overview.”

He did not care to be known as an “ivory-tower academic,” and he embraced local life in Durham, where he was a fixture during the forty-nine years he lived there. After his retirement, he continued research on myriad interests, and he came to be known as somewhat of a one-man reference library to his friends. If he didn’t know the answer to a question, he would find it and provide extensive documentation. In recent years, he discovered the Internet and became an enthusiastic user. He also loved crossword puzzles and did the New York Times puzzle daily.

He is survived by his daughters, Martha (“Matty”) Leighton, of Durham, and Margaret (“Meg”) Leighton of Las Vegas, NV.

A memorial service will be held on Sunday, May 22, 2005 at 2:00 PM in the auditorium of Murkland Hall on the UNH campus in Durham. An old-fashioned Irish wake will follow at Libby’s Bar and Grill on Main Street in Durham.

Contributions may be made to the Charles H. Leighton Memorial Fund, c/o Ocean National Bank, 70 Main Street, Durham, NH 03824.

Arrangements are under the direction of Purdy Memorial Chapel, 2 Concord Rd., Lee, NH. For more information or to sign our on-line guestbook at www.purdyfuneralservice.com