My interview for admission to the Anthropology department happened in Irv’s back yard over drinks. He and I got into a very heated debate, which bordered on a yelling match. My girlfriend at the time, who had joined us that evening, couldn’t believe that I had screwed things up so badly. She was sure I had killed any chance I had of going to Harvard. Well, as it turns out, Irv loved it.

This was just the first of the many debates (sometimes scotch-fueled) we would have over the years in that corner office on the fifth floor of the Peabody Museum. I miss those debates and I particularly miss watching as he clearly took such joy in recounting how one of his favorite proteges — Sarah Hrdy, Barb Smuts, Bob Bailey, or any number of others — had already shown how whatever position I was arguing was false. Seeing that avuncular joy took a bit of the sting out of losing every debate!

Happy trails, Irv. You touched a lot of lives and made the world a better place for it!

Of all the predictions one would NOT have made about Irv in the late 80s (when he became one of my graduate school advisers), certainly one would have been that he wouldn’t live to see his own eighties.

OOPS — That nasty ol’ double negative. I meant, of course, “that he would live to see his own eighties.”

ALSO — Would be curious as to who submitted the Legacy.com obituary in the New York Times. This is a personal, paid obituary — i.e., essentially an ad — as opposed to the news-type obituary written by the newspaper editor. Certainly Irv DeVore’s stature as a 20th-Century American anthropologist would more than justify the latter; cf. Clifford Geertz, K.C. Chang, Margaret Mead, David Maybury-Lewis, and dozens of other anthropologists whose deaths have been so reported.

Is such a formal obituary (in the Times, the Globe, or any other media) in the works for Irv?

Stunned and saddened? The reasons are obvious. But surprised? Indeed yes! Because we who knew Irv also knew (on the basis of some pretty robust evidence) that he “should” have died — perhaps countless times — much earlier. Of all the predictions one would NOT have made about Irv in the late 80s (when he became one of my graduate school advisers), certainly one would have been that he wouldn’t live to see his own eighties. Had Irven Devore been a cat, his quota would have been used up long ago.

Mel Konner’s eloquent tribute above describes Irv as “always larger than life.” Yes indeed, but to me he was something rather more. Sitting in his office I felt his presence like an ineffable cosmic force field. Accompanied by a frisson of intimidation, all the more unsettling because I’ve never felt that, before or since, despite having had the good fortune to know and admire many incredibly impressive individuals.

You see, Irv for all his graciousness and support, never mind avuncular vibes — is the only man (including my own father) who struck me viscerally as THE quintessential alpha primate. The effect surely wasn’t as strong as that of his kindness or intellectual acuity, yet it was there and, yes, a bit unsettling. The cognitive dissonance I felt was real and ultimate meta-rational. I may have been in Irv’s troop, but I was assuredly not in charge.

Irv’s professionally successful progeny have and will weigh in here. Like them, I TF’d B-29. Like them, I often saw the scotch — it would somehow always emerge in the first few minutes of our meetings (initially, I naively and egotistically assumed that it was I who was “driving” him to drink). Somehow I failed to notice the “fake book flask” Greg mentions. Perhaps I was distracted by the dense cigarette smoke threatening to asphyxiate me despite Irv’s various gadgets designed to override the Peabody Museum’s ban on same. Actually, it occurs to me that we shared the same personal physician, until Irv finally “fired” him because the former kept pestering him to quit.

Alas, unlike my fellow commenters here — and despite Irv’s nurturing — I professionally (in the parlance of pediatricians) “failed to thrive.” So, fast forward to this past summer, a mere four months ago: Irv and I sat side by side, waiting for our respective lab tests in the basement of Harvard’s outpatient clinic (UHS). I actually thought he looked pretty good, even energetic, albeit frail. But poor Irv — how kindly and patiently he listened as I vented my sadness and shame for [because of poor health and personal failings] not living up to his expectations, i.e., for not doing him and my other mentors proud. Do you know what he said? “Don’t ever say that, Joe!. You haven’t disappointed us. We — I — will always love you.” Then the phlebotomist called his name.

But speaking of health. (As for smoking, he did (or so he told me) eventually quit.) Click on the New York Times link in Greg’s post. Nowhere (no less in the Times) have I ever read an obituary that lists a cause of death as “noncompliance.” Would that all obits were so honest, what a boon to public health that would be! But then, no one familiar with Irven DeVore’s contributions could fail to appreciate that appellation’s irony, qua his death, as a reference to his anthropological achievements in life.

To Nancy and the rest of Irv’s family and close friends, my very deepest condolences. And to fellow readers of Greg’s blog, please treat yourself to this YouTube interview/tribute — “A Conversation with Irven DeVore” — courtesy of the Annual Review of Anthropology (2012) and Peter Ellison: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AArTF_n06mQ

Deepest sympathies for Irv’s family and friends.
Grazyna