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Acclaimed Anthropologist

George Roth 鈥�62

December 11, 2023, in Chicago, Illinois, of CIPD.

George was born in 1940 in the Bronx. In 1947, the family moved to Tucson, Arizona—and while it was a very small town at the time, George enjoyed living in the desert. Graduating from high school in 1958, he was inspired to enroll at Reed because of a high school science teacher that he admired.

At Reed, George enjoyed madrigal singing and majored in anthropology, writing his thesis, “Voluntary Associations in Two West African Cities,” under Prof. David Heath French ’39 [anthropology 1947–88]. After graduation, George went to the University of Chicago, where he earned an MA and met his future wife, Jane Ganford.

After a few years of junior college teaching, George enrolled in the anthropology PhD program at Northwestern University. He returned to Arizona to research the Colorado River Indian Reservation and wrote his dissertation on the Chemehuevi Tribe, receiving his Ph.D. in 1976.

Following several years of teaching at California State University, San Bernardino, George was offered a chance to work on the newly established Federal Acknowledgement Project at the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, DC. He loved the job and spent the rest of his anthropology career there, retiring in 2011.

George and Jane returned to Chicago in 2012, living in a senior retirement community. He was passionate about Renaissance music and went back to singing after retirement, taking private lessons and singing in chorales. A devoted family man, George is survived by  his wife, Jane, and his two daughters. —Contributed by Suzanne Hanchett ’62 and Jane Roth

Appeared in Reed magazine: Fall 2024