Robert Nangle

Robert Nangle
March 26, 1930 - May 9, 2017
Robert Christie (Bob) Nangle died peacefully after a long illness. Karen, his wife of 57 years was by his side. A graduate of the Foote School, Groton School, and Yale University, he learned how to set monotype, in the fashion of Gutenberg, at Groton, beginning a lifelong involvement in the rapidly changing industry of printing and publishing. When he became a partner in Clarke and Way, he had to join the International Typographers Union in order to run his very own machines. He was amused to find himself the only graduate of Groton who belonged to a Union. He was instrumental in producing the first book printed by optical character recognition. Ultimately, he founded his own company designing and setting books by computer. He loved tailoring the specific look of the printed word on a title page or chapter opener so the design echoed the essence of the book. His discerning eye caught mistakes no one else would notice.
Bob was a pile of paradoxes; to know him was to love him. After helping his father proofread portions of the Yale Shakespeare, he was startled to find himself thinking and speaking in iambic pentameter for several days. Conversation was like a game for him, zooming madly from allusion to allusion, with points for unexpected juxtapositions of ideas or especially piquant or obscure references. Guests were either speechless or dissolved in gales of laughter.
He grew up sailing, and in later life would put on his ever-present cowboy hat, and single-hand our sailboat out onto the Sound, or take either his son, Fred or his daughter Jocie with him, heeling over, gunnels perilously close to the water as the sails filled, accompanied by peals of laughter as they disappeared around Noroton Point, not returning until hours later. He was Darien Harbor Master and a member of Noroton Yacht Club.
Bob's taste in music was wildly eclectic and influenced everyone in the family, all of whom at one time or another sang in choirs, choruses and musical sessions encompassing ancient Irish songs of revelry, rebellion and lost loves, spirituals, sea chanties and cowboy songs not to mention Beethoven, Bach and Brahms. He sang in the choir of St. Luke's Episcopal Church for 15 years
From the time he was an impish little boy, throughout his life, he was intrigued by railroads. There was always a railroad under construction in the basement of whatever house we lived in. He shared his love of trains with our children, however, our daughter is not working on the railroad. She is singing Irish songs both here and in Ireland. It is our son who is working on the railroad.
Bob loved animals. Our house was home to rescue dogs and lost birds. He is survived by his wife Karen; son Frederic; daughter Jocelyn; daughter-in-law Nina Crothers; twin granddaughters, Sofia and Freya Nangle and his faithful rescue dog Neave. Please consider a donation to the Meriden Humane Society, 311 Murdock Ave., Meriden, CT 06450, in his memory.
Bob is giving his body to Yale Medical School for dissection by students in the beginning anatomy class. By doing so, he is becoming part of "the universal rite of passage in the education of a doctor" believing that such a donation is "a triumph over death…and a way of realizing the immortality of the soul or the closest thing to it". He lives on in the hearts of the people who knew and loved him.
(quotations from Richard Selzer, Professor of Surgery, Yale Medical School).