Richard Hunter Rouse

1933 - 2022

August 14, 1933 - July 7, 2022 Richard Hunter Rouse was born in Boston, Massachusetts, to Hunter and Dorothy (née Huesmert) Rouse on August 14, 1933. After spending his earliest years with his maternal grandparents in Germany, his father's career took them to Caltech in Pasadena, California, before the family settled in Iowa City.

Richard excelled at swimming throughout his life, and swam for the University of Iowa where he received his bachelor's degree and, later, for the Masters program, where he won various medals. The pursuit of higher education led him to Illinois, where he received a Master's Degree from the University of Chicago, and eventually to Ithaca, New York, where he earned a PhD in History from Cornell. It was in Ithaca that he met Mary Ames, who promptly became Mary Rouse.

After a year as a manuscript librarian at Harvard, where his first son Thomas was born, Richard moved the young family to Los Angeles where he accepted a tenure track position at UCLA. He spent the rest of his distinguished career as a medieval historian there, picking up two additional children along the way, Andrew and Jonathan.

Richard's teaching career was unique in that he spent nearly a third of it actively not teaching, instead researching for a writing career marked by multiple well regarded publications. This research was largely split between Paris, France and Oxford, England, with entire school years spent overseas for easier access to European libraries and their rare book and manuscript collections.

Richard died on July 7, 2022 after a lengthy struggle with Alzheimer's Disease. He is survived by his wife, three sons, nine grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.