The Ernest Hemingway community lost one of its strongest supporters Tuesday with the passing of EHFOP founding member and past president Redd Griffin, 73.
Griffin was born and raised in Oak Park, worked at the Chicago City News Bureau and WTTW, and served as a state representative in the Illinois General Assembly. He served with the U.S. Army in Berlin and witnessed President Kennedy’s visit to that city, and the aftermath of the president’s assassination.
A tireless supporter of Oak Park and unabashed fan of Ernest Hemingway, Griffin served as the Foundation’s ambassador to the Chicago area, speaking at libraries, fellowship groups and meetings across the suburbs. One of his most recent adventures was conducting a tour of 40 people from a local Explorers’ club.
He shared his love of literature with hundreds of people each year, always connecting Hemingway’s life to the way people live now, and the way they should live.
At a ceremony on Memorial Day last year, Griffin spoke eloquently of Hemingway’s writing on war and peace, saying:
“Hemingway made clear his view, based on his own wartime experiences that ‘abstract words such as glory, honor, courage, or hallow were obscene besides the concrete names of villages, the numbers of roads, the names of rivers, the numbers of regiments and the dates.’
“Hemingway saw such abstract words as empty, especially when cynical leaders used them to manipulate the masses. But he found the values these words stood for to be very real when people lived by them.”
Redd Griffin exemplified those values, and the Foundation, and itslarger community, are greatly diminished without him. He will be sorely missed.
“Redd Griffin’s contributions to all things Hemingway over the past four decades are incalculable," said Foundation Chairman John W. Berry. "The depth and breadth of his understanding of the past and current cultural landscape, that he so readily shared, touched a great many lives. We imagine that Ernest and Redd will now have another lifetime of very lively conversations.”
Visitation will be held on Monday, Nov. 26 from 3 to 9 p.m. at Drechsler, Brown & Williams Funeral Home, 203 S. Marion St., Oak Park. Friends and family are asked to meet at St. Vincent Ferrer Church on Tuesday morning, Nov. 27 for the funeral Mass. The time has not yet been confirmed.
I knew Redd when we were both students at Shimer College, in the late 50s. Redd started at Shimer in ’54, which means he was an “early entrant”. Some who were intellectually gifted, as Redd was, were allowed to start college without completing high school, and by in large, these were our best students.
But Shimer was more than studies to Redd. He was always enthusiastic and always organizing things. He served many terms on the student council, elected by other students, often the other residents of Hathaway Hall. Redd served on the orientation committee, with me, and on the assembly committee, and was active on the staff of our I 10 watt college radio station, WRSB. WRSB didn’t have a large reach, but since it did reach most of our small campus, and most student were resident, it did have an audience.
Even in student days, when students tend to be critical, Redd was very positive about Shimer. My father chaired social sciences, and taught government and economics at Shimer. As I recall Redd was especially enthusiastic about courses with Dad.
I really appreciate all your updates on Redd. I can see it in the Redd I knew. Perhaps it’s the Shimer in me, that says one basic text, the 1959 Shimer yearbook, listing all students, shows an address for Redd in River Forest. That said, I can understand why he would have chosen Oak Park.
Redd’s loss to those who knew him is real. He will be missed.
--John Keohane
BA, Shimer College, 1959
Austin, Texas
[email protected]
Posted by: John Keohane | November 2012 at 04:10 PM