David McKain

Preston — David W. McKain died peacefully on Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2017, 42 years to the day that he and Margaret Gibson married in 1975 and four and one half hours before his 80th birthday. He passed away in the presence of his wife and son and daughter, following 11 years of Alzheimer’s disease, a period of illness marked, as was the whole of his life, by grace, kindness, humor, and a deep love for his family.

David was a poet, a non-fiction writer, and a professor of English at the University of Connecticut, teaching at the Avery Point and Storrs campuses for 30 years, retiring in 1993 as Professor Emeritus. In Storrs, he was the head of the creative writing program. In 1983, he was honored by the Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award. His books include the memoir “Spellbound: Growing Up in God’s Country” and three collections of poems: “In Touch,” “The Common Life,” and “Spirit Bodies.” He was the editor for “The Whole Earth: Essays in Appreciation, Anger, and Hope” (1972) and “Christianity: Some Non-Christian Appraisals,” (1964), anthologies that were ahead of their time.

David earned his B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. at the University of Connecticut. Before teaching at UConn, he worked in New York for Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, and for McGraw Hill, for whom he was the first editor of the McGraw Hill paperbacks series. He also was writer-in-residence at Phillips Academy/Andover, at the University of Pittsburg at Bradford, and at Virginia Commonwealth University. As a young man, he worked as a park ranger in Big Sur and in San Francisco’s City Lights bookstore at a time when Buddhism began to flourish in San Francisco. As a writer, he was honored with numerous awards, and he received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and The Connecticut Commission for the Arts. Spellbound was the winner of the Associated Writing Programs Award for Creative Non-fiction and was nominated for the National Book Award, the PEN award, and the Pulitzer Prize.

David is survived by his beloved wife of 42 years, Margaret Gibson; his children, Joshua McKain (and his wife, Amy and grandchildren, Henry and Lucy) and Megan McKain (and her husband, Brad Jenkins and grandchildren, Isabelle, Rachel and Anneka); as well as by his first wife, Sharon McKain; and his cousins, Nancy and Howard Jonas, Susie and Ken Steiner, Doug and Ruth McKain, and Diane McKain.

The son of Charles and Ida (Crawford) McKain and the nephew of Walter and Elizabeth McKain, David was born in Punxsutawney, Pa., Dec. 28, 1937. He grew up in Bradford, Pa., the subject of his memoir, coming to Connecticut to go to the University of Connecticut on a freshman basketball scholarship, moving here as a resident in 1965. He lived for a time in Noank, moving to Preston in 1972, where he built his own house in the woods of Preston while on sabbatical, reading books on how to build your own house at night and getting up in the morning and doing it. He met poet Margaret Gibson at Yaddo in Saratoga Springs in June 1975, and they married in December of that year.

David was an avid walker and hiker, a book collector and genealogist, a builder of stone walls, a yard-sale and antiques shop explorer, and also a passionate participant in the civil rights and peace movements. As an advocate for the environment, he helped to found the Conservation Commission in Preston and served on the Board of Avalonia Land Conservancy.

During his long illness with Alzheimer’s, David continued to be cheered and loved by his close family and friends. Our family is grateful to and wishes to acknowledge the love given to David and us by the wonderful caregivers and nurses and staff at both Chestnut Cottage (at The Elms) and at Royal Westerly (formerly the Westerly Nursing Home.) At Royal Westerly, so many care-givers became part of our family, too.

Writers and thinkers who guided David’s life were many and wide-ranging. He might perhaps cite as particularly influential the poet William Blake and the Roman stoic Marcus Aurelius. While he was an intellectual, David loved the ordinary wisdom, kindness, and skills of working men and women. He received letters throughout his later years from grateful former students. He was a man of clear vision and well-articulated values, and he had a keen sense of social justice. As keen was his appetite for the simple joys and delights of life. He wanted a full life — and he had one.

Family will gather at David and Margaret’s home in Preston for a private memorial service in February and again for a celebration of David’s life in June.

Arrangements are under the Church and Allen Funeral Home: www.churchandallen.com.