Darwin O’Ryan Curtis ’48

Born Sept. 7, 1926, Dar served in the Merchant Marine during World War II and graduated in 1948. The next year he and Ann Kingman were married. They were together until her death in 1993. They had three sons, Randall, John, and Stephen, and a daughter, Lee. The family had a varied and international life in Greece, France, and especially in Algeria and Vietnam because of Dar’s career in the U.S. Foreign Service. They settled in Chevy Chase, Md., after Dar’s retirement in 1983.

During and after the years abroad, Dar’s work as an inventor-promoter of solar cookers led to reduced need of firewood for family cooking, promoting women’s skills, and increasing nature conservation in parts of Africa and Asia.

Dar was also an author, on subjects ranging from solar cooking and other technologies to social history. He wrote about much of this in a memoir, My Lucky Life.

After Ann’s death, Dar and his high school sweetheart, Lindsay Makepeace, re-met at a class reunion. They soon combined and parented together the large Curtis and Makepeace families — children, grandchildren, nephews, and nieces. Dar died Nov. 5, 2020, in Bethesda.