Ernest Muirhead, August 13, 2012

Published in Houston Chronicle on Aug. 15, 2012

Ernest Eric Muirhead, Jr., 64, passed away peacefully on August 13, 2012 in Houston. He is survived by his wife Susan, sons Elliot (Kari) and Philip, and grandson William. Eric was born in Dallas in 1947 to Ernest Eric and Mary Louise Muirhead, the oldest of five siblings. He graduated from Cranbrook School, Yale University and Rice University. He married Susan in 1970, and they moved to the island of Labuan, East Malaysia, in 1975 working for Brown & Root. They later lived in Los Angeles and Houston.

Eric led a life most people only dream about. He was a cab driver, a schoolteacher, a roughneck, a shipbuilder, a sailor, an English professor, a published novelist and poet. A memorial service is planned for September 8th at 4 pm at the Brookside Funeral Home, 3410 FM 1960 West in Houston.

Class Notes: 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 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. Rindumeans 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.”

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