Martin Michael ("Mike") Crow, longtime professor
of English, died January 30, 1997, at age 95. He was born October
30, 1901, in Crow's Mill, Pennsylvania, on the West Virginia border.
Mike never married, and his nearest surviving relative is a nephew
in Pennsylvania. His younger brother, Homer, who lived with him
in Austin for several years, preceded him in death.
Mike came to the University of Texas Department of English in1934, having
taught previously at the University of Arkansas, and Washington and Jefferson
College. He earned his BA degree at Washington and Jefferson in 1924, his
AM at Harvard University in 1925, and his PhD at the University of Chicago
in 1934. At Harvard, Mike studied Shakespeare under the legendary Professor
George Lyman Kittredge, about whom he had a number of amusing first-hand
anecdotes that he enjoyed recounting. He chose the University of Chicago
for his doctoral studies, in large part as a result of an interview he
had with Professor Edith Rickert. She was the less celebrated, but perhaps
the more magnetic member of the [John Matthews] Manly and Rickert team.
The names of those two scholars, always linked in the minds of academics,
still enjoy justifiable esteem, particularly for their systematic work
in locating, organizing, and presenting the primary Chaucer documents.
Mike's fondness for Professor Rickert was lifelong, and he always had a
picture of her, as a beautiful young woman, in his living room. Less conspicuous
there was a handsome picture of Professor Manly.
The Manly-Rickert projects were seminal in Professor Crow's academic career.
His doctoral thesis was on the Paris Manuscript of Chaucer's
Canterbury
Tales, one of the eighty-four manuscripts and Caxton imprints that
Manly and Rickert included in their monumental edition of the complete
text of the
Tales. In the course of his research Mike spent several
memorable months in Paris living in a pension. After earning the PhD and
coming to Texas, he returned to the University of Chicago as visiting professor
several summers and one full year (1955-56). When Edith Rickert died in
1934, he and a fellow Chicago PhD, Clair C. Olson, completed her work of
compiling and organizing documents, photos, and reproductions of art that
have major relevance to Chaucer and his times. Columbia University Press
published the volume as
Chaucer's World and Oxford University Press
as
Chaucer's England, both in 1941. Mike at the same time was publishing
articles and reviews, almost always dealing with biographical and textual
matters pertaining to Chaucer, in leading journals such as
Speculum,
Texas Studies in Literature and Language, and Modern Philology.
Professor Crow retired from the University of Texas in 1972 after serving
continuously from 1934, except for his two years in the Army Air Force
in World War II (1942-44) in which he served as an instructor in pre-flight
training and as director of Ellington Field's educational program. After
the war he continued for several years in the Army Air Force reserve, discharged
with the rank of captain. Back at UT, Mike served as chair of the Department
of English from 1946 to 1949, and he taught a variety of courses, including
composition, creative writing, and the standard surveys of English literature,
and always Chaucer. In his research he and Clair Olson again took up an
unfinished project in which Edith Rickert had been involved until her death,
this time the much larger work of editing the records of Chaucer's life.
As lead editor, Professor Crow labored diligently and patiently for many
years, and the work was at last published in 1966 by the Clarendon Press
of the Oxford University Press and the University of Texas Press.
The Chaucer Life Records was Professor Crow's great life
work. In assembling and editing the extensive documents relative
to Chaucer's life many more than we have for Shakespeare or
Milton he and Olson exercised the greatest perspicuity and
care. Crow and Olson inherited from Manly and Rickert and Lilian
Redstone a trove of materials, which they gave body, form, and
clarity, and described in the lengthy preface. In the 629 packed
pages presenting mostly Latin and French texts, reinforced with
extensive footnotes and translations, errors are almost non-existent.
The reviews were unanimously positive. As the well-known Chaucerian,
D. S. Brewer, noted in his review (
Notes & Queries 1967), "Contemplating
the enormous labours whose result is before us, one must be pleased,
because what has been done has been done forever." He adds the
telling question, "How many scholars can say that of their work?" The
question is rhetorical, and the answer, of course, is "Almost
none." In the appraisal of the always-measured Morton Bloomfield,
Chaucer
Life Records is simply "an invaluable work" (
Speculum 1967).
As a colleague and teacher, as Professor William O. Sutherland testifies,
Mike was both loved and trusted. His genuine kind interest in the personal
life, families, and academic activities of others made him warmly loved;
and his high standards and keen acumen generated great respect and trust.
In his conversation he radiated genial composure. But, while he never indulged
in extreme language or behavior, he was not easily shocked and was often
amused by the excesses of others both locally and nationally.
Mike's later years were made difficult by failing eyesight, and he became
legally blind in the mid-eighties. But he maintained his easy demeanor
and made use of a closed-circuit television arrangement to magnify text
of all kinds, and he continued as he could his particular interest in Chaucer
and Chaucer scholarship. The latest item in his bibliography is the biography
of Chaucer, which he and Virginia Leland composed for the standard Chaucer
edition, The Riverside Chaucer (1987). It displays the care and prudence
that characterized all of Mike Crow's work after his dissertation. He embodied
the uncommon combination of beloved colleague and teacher, person of uncompromising
standards, and eminent scholar.
<signed>
Larry R. Faulkner, President
The University of Texas at Austin
<signed>
John R. Durbin, Secretary
The General Faculty
This memorial resolution was prepared by a special committee consisting
of Professors James Wimsatt (chair), Thomas Cable, and Elizabeth Scala.
Distributed to the Dean of the College of Liberal
Arts, the Executive Vice President and Provost, and the President
on December 7, 1999. Copies are available
on request from the Office of the General Faculty, FAC 22, F9500.
This resolution is posted under "Memorials" at:
http://www.utexas.edu/faculty/council/ .
