Searching For Stan Leavitt

After Rob and I realized it would be important to memorialize deceased early members of the faculty and staff, I started compiling a list from the 1971 – 3 Bulletin. I can’t remember all of the faculty who have died though I know many of them; at some point we are going to turn to the present faculty to help us remember. But now I have a list of 20. So far, so good.

The problem is that of the 20 I can’t find the dates of their death. I realize that such dates are not needed and that it would be sufficient to remember their names. But, a bit obsessively, I want accurate dates. This comes, I think, from years of genealogical work on my own family where every tiny scrap of information is important – sometimes crucial.

Anyway, I want the dates. I also want their academic rank when they started here and their discipline.

It’s the problem of accurate death dates that brings me to Stan Leavitt.

Most readers here will not remember, or never knew, Stan. But I remember him well. For example, he always had time to chat. I could meet him in the hallways and say “Hi” as I did to dozens of others during the day. But “Hi” for Stan meant we should chat for a few minutes. He would stop me and ask about my Navajo daughter or about my courses or what I was reading or what films I might have seen. These questions would lead to similar questions from me; chats with Stan were never one-way.

The other more and more important thing I remember about Stan Leavitt were his Navajo rugs. It seems that Stan had made contact with a group of Navajo weavers and every summer would visit the reservation buying their rugs. These he would pile in his office where, if you asked, you go see them. If you found a rug you liked, he would quote a price and let you take the rug even if you didn’t have the money then. I bought at least three.

Stan was probably in his late 50s or early 60s when he came to the college; he might have been younger but he was older than I was – in my 40s.

The basic way to find someone who has passed is to look them up in the Social Security Death Index. That index contains almost 86 million Americans. It provides the date and place of death, the Social Security number and the issuing state. It is exactly what I needed to find deceased faculty. Type in the first and last names and get a hit. It sounds so easy.

Using Stan’s name turns up 7 hits using his exact first and last names. But which of the 7 is our Stan? There are Stanley Leavitts from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maine, New Mexico and Georgia. Three of the seven have birth dates of 1917 – 1919 which would fit Stan’s approximate age when he came to Stockton. The other four range from 1898 – 1905 which seem too early.

I have, then, three names but without having more information about Stan’s life – relatives, where his next job was when he left Stockton, etc. there is no way to tell which of the three is the one I’m looking for.

A middle initial would help as would a birth date, the location of his death or even his SSN. It just so happens that Stanley R. Leavitt is listed under the College’s Administrative Studies Program. But, even having his middle initial, I get no hits at all when searching the Social Security Death Index.

If I don’t limit the search to one database – Social Security Death Index – but simply search for the name using all of the hundreds of databases available, I do get a Stanley R. Leavitt living in Santa Fe, NM in 1993. If that is my old friend, there is no way to tell. If I play loosely with dates it is a possible match. Whether Stan is still living is possible though doubtful.

One would think that – given all of the databases out there and all of the technology to access them – this task would take a few minutes. I’ve spent at least three hours on locating Stan and still don’t have confirmed evidence. We cannot spend this sort of time on the dozens of names that we will have but for which we have no death date.

I’m reminded of John Donne’s famous lines:

“all mankind is of one author, and is one volume; when one man dies, one chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language; and every chapter must be so translated….

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for thee.”

I am lessened by any friend’s death; I am even more reduced when I cannot celebrate that life because I cannot ascertain his fate.