Russell Lamonte Langworthy

LANGWORTHY, RUSSELL LAMONTE
92, died ­­­­1 July at Phillip Hulitar Hospice Center, Providence, after a long illness. He leaves behind his wife, Carol DeBoer-Langworthy, sons Mark and Peter, stepdaughter Sylvia Alexis Rolloff, daughter-in-law Patricia Muller and four grandchildren: Benjamin, Margaret, Willa, and Elk Langworthy. He also leaves a sister, Doris Van Horn of Loveland, Colorado. He had a long career as an anthropologist/sociologist and was Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota.
Born August 9, 1924, in Hornell, New York, Russell grew up in Alfred Station and Alfred, NY. He completed one year of college at Alfred University before enlisting in the U.S. Army in the early years of World War II. Given his facility with the French language, he was selected for the ASTP program at Brown University, which he attended briefly. Unable to find teachers of French for the course, the university closed the program and he was placed in the U.S. 59th Infantry as a rifleman. He served with the unit in Iceland until the U.S. Army "remembered" his ability to speak and read French and placed him in a combined U.S.-British-French intelligence unit at Oxford University that was tasked with gaining information on German troop movements in France before D-Day. He went into Normandy's Omaha Beach on D+5 after having been selected as one of the few troops to remain behind, should the invasion fail.
The invasion stalled around the city of Caen and Russ was seconded to work with the French underground behind German lines. Living in a French farming family's barn, he and his comrades scoured the countryside by night and sent reports back to England. Years later, in the 1980s, while a visiting professor at the University of Caen, he would be given the keys to the city by the mayor in appreciation for his service to France. Wounded in a nighttime operation, he escaped back to U.S. lines and was sent to Wheatley, near Oxford, to recuperate. As an ambulatory patient, he attended Magdalen College and heard world-class scholars expound theories of this newish field, anthropology. It was a life-changing encounter.
At war's end Russ returned to Alfred University and graduated magna cum laude with majors in history, French, and sociology in 1949. He won a Sterling Fellowship to Yale University and, with help from the GI Bill, received the Ph.D. in sociology/anthropology in 1953. That fall he drove a new Studebaker to Northfield, Minnesota to take a position as instructor of sociology and anthropology at Carleton ~ and on to the state capital just in time for the Minnesota State Fair. There, on Machinery Hill, he found another community that would sustain him for decades: people interested in tractors, especially tracked vehicles.Over the years he would restore a significant number of antique tracked tractors.
That fall he also met Margaret Wyman, an assistant professor of English, whom he married in 1954 in St. Paul, Minnesota. They had two sons: Mark (b. 1956) and Peter (b. 1958). In 1967 Peggy died. In 1970 Russell married Gertrude Seiler in Rome; this marriage lasted until 1976. In 1981 he married Carol Rolloff, a writer and editor. Now known as Carol DeBoer-Langworthy, she teaches in the Nonfiction Writing Program of Brown University's Department of English.
A popular professor at Carleton College, Russell took leaves for study and work in Italy and India, as well as a full year (1977-79) for a tour of 27 monasteries around the globe. Based on these experiences, he developed particular interest and expertise in Indian and Italian societies. After retiring in 1986, he taught at University of Caen, Normandy, France. He also worked in Guinea-Bissau for AFRICARE and guided students studying abroad in Italy and Morocco through the School for International Training. Then, while teaching at Tartu University, Estonia, he directed George Soros' Civic Education Program for the Baltics for three years after the fall of the Soviet empire. Moving to Providence in 1995, he was part of a group at Brown's Watson Institute studying new land use patterns in Ukraine after the breakup of the Soviet empire ~ including fieldwork in Ukraine. Later he served as a docent at the John Brown House, the Nightingale Brown House, and at the RISD Museum. He was a devoted supporter of The Providence Athenaeum.
Russell's passions for music, literature, history and the arts amplified his lifelong interest in human relations and economic and social development, including land tenure systems and intentional communities. A funeral service is planned for 11 a.m. Wednesday, 9 August at St. Martin's Episcopal Church, 50 Orchard Avenue, with private burial in Minnesota in the fall.
In lieu of flowers, memorials are preferred to the scholarship fund of Alfred University. Gifts can be made to Alfred University and sent to University Relations, 1 Saxon Drive, Alfred, NY 14802. Please put Russell's name in the memo line on the check.
For full obituary, please see http://www.mkds.com/obituaries/Russell-L-Langworthy?obId=1990235#/obituaryInfo