Emery Sanborn Fletcher ’55 *63
Emery, an astrophysicist whose broad interests featured a fondness for the 12-string guitar and MacGyver, the TV character who solved crime problems with offbeat, ingenious methods, died Jan. 26, 2022, at his home in Albuquerque, N.M.
Emery was born June 29, 1933, in Summit, N.J. He attended Princeton for two years; enlisted in the Army, where he spent three years; then enrolled at Rutgers and graduated in 1960. He then returned to Princeton, earning a Ph.D. in 1963.
The next year Emery taught physics at Yale and Wesleyan. He also played 12-string guitar in New York City coffeehouses. In 1968 he began teaching at the University of Nevada in Reno, then moved to Putney, Vt.
In 1975 he met Susan Hopley in Putney. They were married in 1976 and moved to La Serena, Chile, where Emery joined the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, living first down below and then up in the Andes.
In 1977 Emery joined Itek Corp. in Lexington, Mass., and bought a historic house in Ipswich. It turned out that an ancestor of Emery’s had built the house in 1680. In 1985 Emery left Itek to work full time with Susan in their specialty antiques business. In 1993 they moved to Santa Fe, N.M., and ran a gallery, then to a new home on land leased to them by the Cochiti Pueblo. Their last stop, from 2018 to 2022 was in an apartment in Albuquerque.
Susan, his wife of 45 years, is his only survivor.
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Comments
Lisa Ericson
3 Years AgoTragic News
I was Emery’s second wife, married Sept. 21, 1968. (His first wife has passed.) We met in New Haven while he was teaching at Wesleyan. We lived an ideal marriage in Virginia City, Nevada, for nearly two years until our son was born with what became progressively devastating brain damage. We moved to Pitney, Vermont, where Emery taught at Windham College and together we began our antique business with a small shop in our home named after our son, Ethan. Eventually we became reminders of each other’s shared sorrow and I chose to divorce. I soon regretted it but happily Emery found Susie. I phoned him a couple of times over the years including this year, leaving a message on the answering machine wishing my dear Emery a happy 89th birthday. Tragically for me, I didn’t know until this moment that he was already gone.
Emery Fletcher was the most thoughtful, loving person I’ve ever known and the best husband and father possible. Despite his age, I’m devastated that he is gone. I have missed him each day since we parted.
Emery was pre-deceased by his son in 1994. As to his playing the 12 string guitar, Emery’s talent can be heard on a vintage vinyl folk album by Randy Burns entitled “Of Love and War” on the ESP label. Such a rounded and enthusiastic person, there is not enough space to write everything about Emery. It is true that Susan H. Fletcher is his last surviving relative.
Thank you for this opportunity.