John Kenneth Galbriath Dies
Jim Moore’s beautiful and warm observations of the passing of a giant of our times..
John Kenneth Galbraith was not only a beloved economist,he was also a local whose towering strides, slowing as he aged, were a common site on Church Street, Brattle Street, and in and around Harvard Square.
There was something enormously calming about his presence, and something reassuring about seeing him striding through the square.
He was the steward of a dependable garden of care and wisdom and stability for the community, both literally–wthin his sheltered yard and home on Francis Street–and figuratively. He often had students living in his third floor
apartment. My friend Sue Lowe Franklin lived with the Galbraiths for years.
The annual garden party, timed for Harvard graduation, was a low-key inclusive event mixing Nobel prize-winners with activists with students with friends. Within his professional radiance, generations of humanistic, caring, policy-oriented economists,
historians, and public servants were encouraged. He exemplified Eric Erickson’s “generative” person..using his magnificent talents to establish and extend fertile ground upon which others could plant and tend their own gardens and vinyards.
Link: John Kenneth Galbraith died yesterday here in Cambridge. [April 30th 2006]
