Lawrence Dawson

1921 - 2017

Dawson, Lawrence Lawrence R. Dawson died on April 28, 2017 at the home of his son in Carlisle, Massachusetts. He was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, April 6, 1921, the first of five children of Lawrence and Elaine Dawson. After completing the city's public school programs, he enrolled at Western Michigan College in 1938; he married Eleanor M. Polk, of Detroit, in 1942. Following graduation, he served in the Army Air Corps during World War II. After administrative training school in Denver, and brief assignments in Montana, Canada and Texas, he was assigned academic instructor at Fort George Wright, Spokane, Washington; for two years he taught in the Air Force's innovative educational program for convalescent airmen following their tour of service in the European theater, living off base with his wife and young son, Jeffrey. Mustered out in April 1946, he taught the final two months at Davison High School and one year at Warren High School in Michigan. The three-member family then moved for graduate study to the University of Michigan, where Mr. Dawson became a Teaching Fellow, completing his Master of Arts Degree in 1948 and continuing with his doctoral program. In 1951 he became an Instructor of English at Colorado State University, at Fort Collins; he was awarded his doctoral degree in 1960. He taught at CSU for seventeen years, from Instructor to Professor. In addition to teaching undergraduate and graduate students, he served as director of graduate English studies, was a member of the honors teaching program and of the graduate council of the university. He was also Chairman of the Fine Arts Series, a committee of students and faculty members who planned yearly cultural programs for the institution an community. In 1968, he accepted an invitation to become Chairman of the Department of English Language and Literature at Central Michigan University, Mt Pleasant. He resigned the position in 1972, continuing his teaching duties and serving on various committees until his retirement in 1987. In February 1986, his wife died from a snow-storm automobile accident while she was on duty as head of the branch libraries of Mt Pleasant's Veterans Memorial Library. Prof. Dawson continued living at their home on Cedar Drive. Besides his teaching responsibilities, he wrote articles for a variety of academic and historical journals, with a special interest in such Michigan figures as Della Thompson Lutes, Billy Clark, Hezekiah G. Wells and Henry Whiting. He also had a longtime interest in poetry, editing a book of his wife's poems and publishing some of his own poems in the journals Commonweal, Michigan Quarterly Review and The Living Church and making an edition of poems he had written over five decades. He was an active member of the Episcopal Church, both in Colorado and at St. John's Mt Pleasant, where he was a Lay Reader, vestryman and Senior Warden. He also served as a member of the diocesan Standing Committee and the Ecumenical Committee. Prof. Dawson is survived by his son Jeffrey Lawrence and daughter-in-law Jane, of Carlisle, Massachusetts, two grandchildren Alexander Lawrence of New York City, Catherine Elizabeth Hartnett of Alexandria, Virginia, great-grandson Teagan Hartnett of Alexandria, and sister Patricia Boekeloo of Kalamazoo. He was preceded in death by sisters Dorothy Mejeur and Mary Ellen VanderMeulen, and brother Henry. A memorial service will be held at St. John's Episcopal Church in Mt Pleasant on July 27 at 1pm.