Verdel A. “Del” Kolve
Verdel Amos “Del” Kolve was born in 1934, to Amos and Gunda Kolve and raised in rural Taylor. The family eventually moved into the adjacent small City of Blair.
Del was a gifted student throughout his years in school and excelled in the Debate Club at Blair High School. As he was preparing to go to the University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire with a High School friend, he participated in the state High School debate competition where he was discovered by a professor from the University of Wisconsin in Madison. He was encouraged to enroll in Madison of which he did and that simply changed his life forever. Aside from his vast educational and academic accomplishments, Del was full of life and passion for his family, friends, students and academic peers. Del would always find time for his students, whether graduate or undergraduate. Even in his retirement he spent countless hours mentoring graduate students as they strove to achieve their advanced degrees. He loved parties that were at times very flamboyant and at other times extremely serious. He loved to tell the story of his escapades with William F. Burrows and Allen Ginsberg ( two figures that were considered responsible for the beat generation in the 60s) at a late-night party at the American Consulate in Paris that lasted into the wee hours of the morning. He also enjoyed telling stories of his relationship with J.R.R. Tolkien (author of the Lord of the Rings) and the hours they would sit in an English pub discussing medieval English, Chaucer and 14th century illustrated manuscripts. Throughout his life he was able to call movie actors and production professionals, local celebrities, famous architects, famous authors, influential politicians, highly respected academic professors, and countless students as his dear friends. He would send out over a hundred Christmas cards yearly. His home in Hollywood was used as a movie set to produce the movie Dead Heat and it staged numerous magazine and professional photography shoots that included people like Angelina Jolie and Greg Louganis. Del traveled the world over, from China to Bora Bora to the nations of Europe and beyond. It was always exciting to receive a post card from him from some far away Scottish castle, a thatched roof bungalow in the south pacific, downtown Hong Kong, Carnaby Street in London, or the fiords of Norway. He learned to ski in the Austrian and Swiss Alps and was fluent in several languages. His love for the arts, adventure, and knowledge never strayed as he read daily for hours, collected fine wines and art, loved music, theater, and ballet, enjoyed fine dining, and embraced diverse cultures and ethnicities.
He was a dedicated and faithful man to his husband, Larry Luchtel, for 50 years. He was a dear brother to his sister, Lois Winter (Kolve), and was deeply loved by his nieces: Ann Fajfer (Winter), Ellen Otten (Winter) and his nephew Todd Weik. He also had numerous great nieces and nephews that he expressed his unconditional love to on any given occasion. The world has lost a shining light of humanity and academics. He will be deeply missed.
His educational accomplishments and official obituary that was published in the LA Times follows:
“January 18, 1934 - November 5, 2022 Verdel A. Kolve died peacefully at home and without pain on November 5, 2022, from complications of kidney cancer. Larry Luchtel, his husband, and companion of fifty years was at his side. Born in rural Wisconsin, he graduated Summa cum laude from the University of Wisconsin in 1955, and subsequently attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, earning an Honors B.A. in English Literature with a Congratulatory First in 1957, and an M.A. and D. Phil. from Oxford while serving as a tutor and Research Fellow at St. Edmund Hall, Oxon., between 1958 and 1962. In that year he accepted an assistant professorship at Stanford University, rising there to the rank of associate professor in 1968, before moving to the University of Virginia as Commonwealth Professor of English in 1969. In 1986, he joined the faculty of the University of California at Los Angeles, becoming the first UCLA Foundation Professor, and teaching there for fifteen years before retiring in 2001.
An internationally renowned scholar of medieval literature, with a particular interest in Chaucer. He was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America, serving as its President in 1992-1993, an Honorary Fellow of St. Edmund Hall, and Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was President of the New Chaucer Society for two years, in 1994-1996. In addition, to many scholarly articles, he published four books: The Play Called Corpus Christi (1966), Chaucer and the Imagery of Narrative: The First Five Canterbury Tales (1984, winner of the Phi Beta Kappa Prize, for “the Best Book Published by a Faculty Member in the Academic Year 1984-1985,” the British Council Prize in the Humanities, for “the Best Book by a North American Scholar on Any Aspect of British Studies in the Humanities,” and the James Russell Lowell Prize of the Modern Language Association, for “the Outstanding Scholarly Book by a Member of the Association Published in 1984”), Telling Images: Chaucer and the Imagery of Narrative II (2009, winner of the Phi Beta Kappa Christian Gauss Award, for “An Outstanding Book of Literary Scholarship or Criticism”), and with Glending Olson, an edition for teaching, Nine Canterbury Tales and the General Prologue (1989), subsequently reprinted several times.
Recognized as well as a brilliant and inspiring teacher at both undergraduate and advanced levels, he opened the aesthetic triumphs of the Middle Ages to generations of students. His eloquence, learning, and close attention to all in every class were many times acknowledged (Outstanding Teacher Award of the Graduate English Faculty Club, University of Virginia, 1971; E. Harris Harbison National Teaching Award, Danforth Foundation, 1972; Luckman Distinguished Teaching Award with Special Distinction in Graduate Teaching, UCLA 1995), but in his view never better than by the lasting respect and affection of his students. In their successes he found great joy.
Del was much loved, and returned that love widely, but not without discrimination. His absence will be felt deeply by many for years to come.”
Published by
Los Angeles Times, from
Nov. 18 to Nov. 20, 2022.
