Roddy O’Connor — scholar, bon vivant, raconteur — was born in New York City Nov. 14, 1933, and died Jan. 13, 2014, in France. A Deerfield graduate, Roddy majored in English at Princeton, where he joined Ivy. In 1971 he earned a Ph.D. at Princeton in Romance languages and literature, concentrating in 19th-century French literature.

Five years in Army intelligence services led to a posting in Paris and marriage to Olga Lapkoff. After a Doubleday editorship, Roddy began a teaching career, first at Robert College in Istanbul, Turkey, and later at the University of Michigan, Bradford College in Massachusetts, the Koç Özel Lisesi in Istanbul, and finally the Anglo-American School of Casablanca in Morocco.

Roddy also served as director of Michigan’s and Wisconsin’s School Year Abroad program in Aix-en-Provence; associate director of the Lacoste School for the Arts in Southern France; and director of docents at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass.

He was fluent in French, could converse in Spanish and Turkish, and was familiar with German. Insatiable curiosity led to extensive world travel and deep reading on a wide range of subjects, all of which he continued in retirement.

Olga predeceased Roddy. For the last six years of her life, they lived in La Faouët, Brittany.

Graduate Class of 1971
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Undergraduate Class of 1955