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Jan. 12, 2006
John H. Wilson, a longtime member of the Holy Cross English department, died Jan. 12 at his home in Worcester, at 69.
Joining the faculty in 1961, Mr. Wilson was promoted to associate professor in 1972. In addition to his teaching responsibilities, he had served the College in many capacities, including assistant dean for the Class of 1972; director of the Study Abroad program; and Graduate Studies adviser. Gifted in language study, he participated in a yearlong faculty seminar on Chinese language and culture in 1987-88 and a six-week trip to China in the summer of 1988. Mr. Wilson took part in an NEH Summer Seminar on "The Oral Tradition in Literature" in 1989 at the University of Missouri.
An accomplished musician, he played the organ at St. Mary's Church in Binghamton, N.Y., Yale University Chapel in New Haven, Conn., and St. Ann's Church in Shrewsbury, Mass. In addition, Mr. Wilson had been a tenor for 18 years with the Worcester Chorus, traveling with the group to Russia, Sweden and Estonia.
Involved in Cursillo retreats, Antioch spiritual weekends and small prayer groups, he had been an active member of Blessed Sacrament Parish in Worcester where he sang in the church choir.
The winner of a national Woodrow Wilson Fellowship for graduate study at Yale University as a fourth-year student at Holy Cross, he earned his master of arts degree there in 1960 and his Ph.D. in English literature in 1966.
Mr. Griffin is survived by his wife, Margaret R. Griffin-Wilson '76; a son, Holmes P. '03; a daughter; four sisters; and many nephews and nieces.
James M. Kee, interim vice president for academic affairs and dean of the College and associate professor of English, offered the following tribute to John Wilson as part of his Remarks of Remembrance during the funeral Mass, celebrated Jan. 16, at Blessed Sacrament Church:
… John was so passionate and could share his passions in such life-giving and life-affirming ways because his soul was great. Even as he became weary in body, his soul remained ready, attuned, well-tempered. Striving all his life to respond to the Good, he had realized within his soul many of those forms of excellence we commonly call virtues. John was just and had a passion for justice; he was wise, and prudent, and courageous. Most importantly, he was a man of faith, and hope, and love. As a virtuous man, he was able to embrace life passionately and not lose his balance, not drown in the soul's passionate depths.
Following is part of a remembrance offered by Thomas M.C. Lawler, Holy Cross professor emeritus of English, in honor of Mr. Wilson:
John knew for a year that his cancer was terminal. He spent time in the hospital and suffered pain there and at home. A year is a long time to have certain death on your mind. But his time at home with the family was beautiful—the best part of his life perhaps. And in thinking about it, I believe that John's heart had been lifted up from our gray mortality by his joy, by the intensity he felt for life, by the people he knew, by bits of Chinese poems, and bottles of good wine, the market places in the Islamic States of Russia, singing in Sweden and Estonia, by King Lear and Beowulf and a heroic vision that will not quit. … To those who saw him in these last months, there was the same smile, the same inquiring love of literature, the same profound but quiet spirituality that pushed back death which he was not afraid of.
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