Itch died in Wellfleet, Mass., on May 21, 2001. Born in Short Hills, N.J., his early years in schools in Cuba and the US hinted at the multifaceted life he was to have. He prepped at South Kent, captained Princeton's lightweight crew (invited to the Henley Regatta), was Phi Beta Kappa, and taught at three prep schools before serving a three-year Navy hitch in the South Pacific during WWII.

Postwar he returned to student life, earning both a master's and a PhD in French literature at Princeton. He then joined the faculty at Brown for 30 years, rising to chair both its French and comparative literature departments. In this period, he also wrote books, coached crew, served on Brown's medical board in the early years of its then-fledgling Medical School, and won two Fulbright fellowships and a Guggenheim grant.

After "retirement" to Wellfleet, he turned from contemplating French writers to solving Wellfleet's myriad shellfish, sand-road, harbor management, and tombstone restoration problems. He proved deft at all of them.

Survivors include his third wife, Barbara, and his children, Peter, John, and Ana T. Kammann. His children's mother and second wife, Patricia Smith, also survives, as do four of their grandsons (including Sean Kammann '98).

The Class of 1935