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John Dickey Obituary
John Sloan Dickey, Jr., scientist, author, and poet, died of cancer at his home in Puerto Rico on October 8, 2019. Born January 24, 1941 in Washington, D.C. to Christina M. and John S. Dickey, he grew up in Hanover, N.H. and graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy, Dartmouth College (A.B. in geology), the University of Otago (M.Sc. in geology on a Fulbright Scholarship), and Princeton University (Ph.D. in geological and geophysical sciences). A member of the Smithsonian research team that first examined the moon rocks from Apollo 11, Dickey's career included positions at M.I.T. (Assistant Professor), NSF (Program Director), Syracuse University (Chair of Geology), Trinity University in San Antonio (Dean of Science, Math, and Engineering), and the American Geophysical Union (Director of Outreach and Research Support). While living in San Antonio, he was a member of the King William Yacht Club (one year serving as "Commodore"), participating in the annual Holiday River Parade and holding festive gatherings afterward. In addition to scholarly articles, Dickey
authored On the Rocks (Wiley, 1988), a book about the earth and planetary sciences for the general public, and two collections of poetry: Quebradillas (AuthorHouse, 2011; Fourth Edition forthcoming), lyric poems about rural life, and Adrift Among the Stars (JoSara, 2017), an epic poem about the Earth and solar system and a PenCraft Award 1st Place winner. He is survived by his wife Lynn and their 5 dogs (Lizzie, Daisy, Shirley Temple, Conchita, and Ricky), sister Christina Stearns, son Nathaniel, and grandchildren Margaret and Benjamin.
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Memories and Condolences
for John Dickey
2 Entries
Casey Moul
February 2, 2024
When I found John had died, too much time had passed to be of any use or comfort to Lynn. I just stare at the Christmas card with the two wonderful people and their beloved dogs, read the poems, and comb through the memories I have of the fruit in her salad, the dream house on the cliffs, my discovery of their amazing minds, and wonder: how did I ever lose touch. ? No return address remained on the Christmas card, the email no longer worked, phone? `Twas pre cell phone period for me, scribbled on some doomed scrap of paper. They lived so close, really. Should never have been a problem, except II found myself lost in Quebradillas looking for the house. Maybe it was a dream after all. Lynn, I don´t know where you are, or even if you are still with us after so much time. If you are, I want to know how sad it all makes me, yet how I smile when I think of lunch with the Dickeys. I can´t see an iguana without his poem and his genius coming to mind.
Marc Maderazzo
April 12, 2021
I was an undergraduate and a Masters student at MIT when John was a professor there. My first close contact with him was in a so-called Special Studies course, a one-semester curriculum developed by us together. We met in his office every Friday afternoon in the Fall semester of my senior year to discuss recent important petrology papers. We'd chat for an hour or two, smoking cigarettes (this was decades ago), and then go downstairs for Happy Hour. I came to respect his remarkable, agile intelligence, his gentle humor, and his profound interest in and deep comprehension of some of the most interesting issues in the field at that time. The next year, as a Masters student, I took John's two-semester Advanced Petrology sequence, and grew to love his relaxed, idiosyncratic classroom approach to the material.
John was a great teacher and a very good man. I miss him.
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