Ernest Eric Muirhead, Jr. – 50th Reunion Essay

Ernest Eric Muirhead, Jr.

Date of Death: 13-Aug-2012

3423 Woodbriar Dr.

Houston, TX 77068

muirrindu@sbcglobal.net

832-457-6213

Spouse(s): Susan Putnam Muirhead (1970)

Child(ren): Elliot Michael (1981), Philip Steven (1983)

Grandchild(ren): Ethan (2013)

Education: Cranbrook School 1965, Yale University BA in Psychology, Rice University MA in English Literature

Career: Quality Control Supervisor for Brown & Root, Teacher for 8 yrs. at Chadwick School, Teacher for 20 yrs. at San Jacinto College.

Avocations: We built a 53ft. gaff-rigged schooner on the beach in Labuan, Sabah and sailed it with friends from Labuan to Hawaii. Eric was a writer for his whole life and published Cab Tales. Posthumously I published Rindu, Eden’s Abyss, and The Collected Poems of Eric Muirhead.

College: Saybrook

(This memorial appeared in the January/February 2013 Class Notes, contributed by Eric’s widow, Susan. Susan plans to come to our reunion and her contact information is shown above.)

Eric Muirhead passed away peacefully on August 13, 2012 in Houston. He is survived by his wife, Susan (whom he met during Coed Week), two sons, and a grandson. His Saybrook roommates Jerry Rosenbaum, Andy Vorkink, and Rickard Arnold plan to make a memorial gift in his honor and welcome contributions from classmates. Here is a memorial written by Susan:

His first novel, Cab Tales, was recently republished by Ink Brush Press. Rindu, A Novel of Expatriate Life Overseas will be coming out on Kindle, and his third novel, Eden’s Abyss, will be out soon. This is his legacy. What can I say about an intellect as broad as profound and sensitive as Eric’s? His industry knew no boundaries whether it was sailing across the Pacific on a 53-foot gaff-rigged schooner we built on the beach in Labuan, Malaysia, or line-editing his novel for the fourth time. His love of music and knowledge of literature, which he shared with students at San Jacinto College for 19 years, and of course his innate perfectionism, drove his life. He had to write, and he did write every day that was his. On his website, EricMuirhead.net, you will find his voyage across the Pacific and his poems already published, as well as articles he wrote from Borneo.

I met Eric and his roommates, Jerry Rosenbaum, Andy Vorkink, and Rick Arnold on February 1, 1969, at a Saybrook mixer. Yale was a special place for me. Commuting from Vassar to Yale became a weekly enterprise. Though Vassar did not accept the invitation to join Yale in New Haven, I accepted Eric’s invitation to marry him. Leaving medical school in Houston, Eric got a master’s degree in English and we headed off to Labuan, a 7-by-10-mile island off the coast of Borneo where he ran the school for the children of expatriates. We then started sailing and built Rindu on the beach. He was hired back on with Brown & Root as quality control supervisor negotiating with Shell Oil. His knowledge of Malay and friendship with the Ibans working the fabrication yard was a boon. His voyage across the Pacific from Labuan to Hawaii took four months, navigating with only a sextant. Teaching at Chadwick School, California, Eric began writing Rindu. Rindu means lovesick or homesick in Malay.

The four roommates and their wives reconvened in Maine a few years ago, swapping stories of lives well led. I have just retired from teaching high school for 21 years. Elliot is now an auto technician, and Philip is an astronomer at Cal Tech, having reclassified three planets surrounding a red dwarf star, KOI 961. A devoted father to his two sons, a lover and beautiful husband to me, a teacher always inspirational and always challenging to his students, Eric remains an exceptional person who lived an exceptional life.