In Memoriam: Eric Widmer Founding Head of School
Dr. Eric G. Widmer (January 16, 1940 - January 18, 2025)
Renowned leader in global education, historian and beloved citizen of the world, Dr. Eric Widmer died at his home in Simsbury, CT on The Ethel Walker School campus, where his wife Dr. Meera Viswanathan serves as head of school, after a year-long battle with cancer, surrounded by family. He was celebrated for his formidable scholarship, visionary leadership, and his enduring humanity.
Eric hailed from a long line of educators, distinguished for founding institutions around the world. His great-grandfather, Cyrus Hamlin, launched Robert College, in what was then Constantinople (now Istanbul) in 1863, with the blessing of the Ottoman sultan. It was the first American college abroad, and has played an immense role in Turkey and neighboring nations, educating generations of prime ministers, foreign ministers, distinguished writers, and nation-builders. Hamlin’s children and grandchildren also taught in what was then called the Near East. Eric’s beloved mother, Carolyn Ladd Widmer, launched a public health program for the Rockefeller Foundation in Bogota, Columbia, before founding the Collegiate School of Nursing at the American University of Beirut. There she met and married Robert Jean René Widmer, who headed the French section of AUB.
World War Two played a dramatic role in shaping Eric’s destiny. He might have grown up French, or even Lebanese, and it was said that the first words he heard were in Arabic, spoken by a nurse. But in 1940, with the Germans threatening the Middle East, Eric’s mother brought her two small children to the United States (his father stayed and joined the Free French in their fight against the Germans in North Africa). He grew up in Storrs, CT, where his mother founded the School of Nursing at the University of Connecticut, and became its first Dean.
In 1953, Eric’s education began to blossom at Deerfield Academy, where he emerged as an outstanding student and athlete; at Williams College, where he was a star running back and lacrosse player as well as president of his class, and his fraternity; and finally, Harvard University, where he received a Ph.D. in History and Far Eastern Languages as part of a cohort under distinguished professor John King Fairbank. He subsequently joined the faculty at Brown University where he taught Chinese and Inner Asian History with Harvard publishing his monograph entitled The Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Peking During the 18th Century, a work still read today by historians around the world and in diplomatic circles. At Brown, he served in a number of academic and administrative capacities over twenty-five years, including many years as a legendary Dean of Student Life and then Dean of Admission and Financial Aid. Brown is also where he met his wife Meera who was a faculty member in Comparative Literature and East Asian Studies.
Following his time at Brown as professor and dean, it was his great honor to serve as 54th Headmaster at his alma mater Deerfield Academy from 1994-2006, the first alumnus to do so, and where he was known as Mr. Widmer, or more playfully, The Wid, a nod to the legendary headmaster of Deerfield Dr. Frank Boyden, who was known to all the students as The Quid. Eric was committed to enshrining Deerfield’s traditions even while ensuring that Deerfield continued to lead in the contemporary world, establishing The Deerfield Press, and ensuring global perspectives at his alma mater through additions to the curriculum, lectures, visiting faculty appointments, and opportunities for students and faculty to connect with counterparts around the world through various organizations such as Round Square and Global Connections.
While for many, that would have been the peak of a career, he then was asked by His Majesty King Abdullah II, to become the founding head of school at King’s Academy, which today is an internationally prominent boarding and day school in Madaba, Jordan. In addition, he served as a trustee on numerous boards around the world, including: Robert College in Istanbul, Turkey; The American Community School in Beirut, Lebanon; ASSIST; Global Connections; and the Kingston Congregational Church in Kingston, Rhode Island.
Perhaps his favorite word was “cherish,” that sense of holding things dear to one’s heart. Eric cherished first and foremost: family, friends, students, institutions of learning and noble ideals. He listened carefully to each individual, remembering details and confidences for many years after. He made a point of learning every student’s name at the schools he headed, recognizing how important it was for each person’s identity to be noted and celebrated. Gratitude was a hallmark of his life, and he reveled in thanking those around him for all that they made possible. Generations of students around the world bear witness to his generative impact on their academic and personal lives.
His pleasures were quotidian ones–coaching his boys’ soccer teams, enjoying a meal in a school dining hall, reading his son Ted’s articles in newspapers, savoring a single malt scotch after dinner, and watching sports, whether televised or through sitting on the 3rds bench. A gifted raconteur and self-taught recorder player, Eric through language and music expressed his love and engagement with the world around him, his life a paean to “the music of the spheres.”
He particularly loved the 350-year-old home in Matunuck he shared with Meera, which afforded endless opportunities to tinker with cars, practice bird calls, read books, set up model trains, fill in “Spelling Bee” or “Jumble,” or watch episodes of “Gunsmoke,” where the old-fashioned virtues of neighborliness, courage and honor conquered villainy and selfishness, night after night. In fact, these virtues were not old-fashioned at all; to him, they remained a defining yardstick, and the measure of a life well-lived. Matunuck was also a place of wonderful meals, cooked at home, or a place down the street that felt like home, Cap’n Jack’s.
His passions ranged broadly from education to athletics, languages, joke-telling, classical music, and writing in diverse genres ranging from history to memoir to penning school songs and limericks, all of these laced with his customary quiet wit and sense of irony. These include The Founding of King’s Academy: A Jordanian Memoir and Nursing a Life: A Remembrance of Carolyn Ladd Widmer, 1902-1991. His perennial admonitions to students were ones he heard at Deerfield from Headmaster Frank Boyden, who always reminded the students to “be worthy of your heritage” and to “finish up strong.” And so Eric was, and so he did.
He is survived by his wife Meera; his former wife, Dr. Ellen Widmer, the Mayling Soong Professor of Chinese Studies at Wellesley College; his brother Michael and his wife Jeanne; his beloved sons, Ted, and Matt and his partner Lisa Miller; as well as his grandchild Freddy and their husband Stephen Eesley.
In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Eric’s name to The Olive Branch Fund to support scholarships to King’s Academy for Palestinian students from Gaza.
A funeral service will be held on March 1, 2025 at 13:00 at Kingston Congregational Church in Kingston, RI as well as memorial services/celebrations of his life to be held at The Ethel Walker School in April, King’s Academy in May, and Deerfield Academy in June for each of those communities to be able to honor his memory and many accomplishments