Quimby obituary
Mark > February 26th, 2003, 06:37 PM
Press release from Grand Valley State university
GEORGE I. QUIMBY, 1913 - 2003
HE PURSUED LIFELONG INTERESTS IN ARCHAEOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY
On February 17, Professor George I. Quimby, one of American archaeology's most distinguished practitioners, died of pneumonia-related causes in Seattle. He was 89. The descendant of pre-Revolutionary American pioneers, he was born in Grand Rapids to George Irving Quimby and Ethelwyn Sweet Quimby.
His father was proprietor of Raymers Bookstore in Grand Rapids and young Quimby enjoyed many hours buried in books. In an autobiographical sketch he penned for American Antiquity magazine in 1993, Professor Quimby, said his interest in archaeology and anthropology began in his childhood. He recalled that, "My parents were interested in the history of the Grand Rapids area, including Indian group.... As a young boy in Western Michigan I remember looking for stone arrowheads in the hollows among the sand dunes."
Also an avid sailor in his youth, he recalled that, "among my most pleasant memories are those of cruising in the Upper Great Lakes for three summers from 1930 to 1932.... I visited many islands and other isolated communities that were more typical of the nineteenth century than of the twentieth. I saw Indian villages, fishing villages, and small farming communities, scenes more familiar to my ancestors than to my descendants."
After receiving a B.A and M.A in anthropology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and graduate studies at the University of Chicago, Quimby joined the Field Museum in Chicago, later becoming curator of North American Anthropology and Ethnology. After 23 years there, he moved his family to Seattle in 1965, where he was Professor of Anthropology at the University of Washington and, beginning in 1968, Director of the Thomas Burke Memorial Washington State Museum.
When he left Chicago to come to the University of Washington, his work had spanned the Late Pleistocene through the historic period, from the Arctic to the Gulf of Mexico and beyond. Among publications from his Chicago years were several books, including "Indian Life in the Upper Great Lakes 11,000 B.C. to A.D. 1800" and "Indian Culture and European Trade Goods: The Archaeology of the Historic Period in the Western Great Lakes Region."
On becoming a resident of the Pacific Northwest, he grew increasingly interested in Northwest Coast archaeology and ethnohistory. This led to collaboration with colleague Bill Holm on restoration of an early documentary film by Edward Curtis, released in 1973 as "In the Land of the War Canoes," another film in 1979 titled, "The Image Maker and the Indians: Edward Curtis and his 1914 Kwakiutl Movie," and a 1980 book titled, "Edward S. Curtis in the Land of the War Canoes: A Pioneer Cinematographer in the Pacific Northwest." Quimby retired from the University of Washington in 1983 as Professor Emeritus.
His list of numerous anthropological articles and various other publications spans 1937 to 1994. His honors include the Distinguished Service award in 1989 from the Society for American Archaeology and an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Grand Valley State University in 1992. During his lifelong career in archaeological and anthropological research and education, he touched the lives of many people, not only colleagues, but several generations of anthropology students and museum enthusiasts.
He was preceded in death by his sister Mabel Lowe Quimby Deane in 1958 and his brother Thomas H. E. Quimby in 1998. He is survived by his wife of 62 years, Helen Ziehm Quimby, of Seattle, who was at his side when he died; his daughter, Sedna Helen Quimby Wineland, of Boulder Colorado; sons G. Edward, John E. and Robert W. Quimby, of Seattle; and five grandchildren. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the George I. Quimby Memorial Anthropology Fund at Grand Valley State University, Allendale, MI.