John Robert Kayser

John Robert Kayser died at his home on May 8 at the age of 85. It is with profound sadness that we say goodbye to this resilient, intellectual, and passionate man whose life had an impact on everyone who knew him. He will be missed. John came into the world in 1937 during the most difficult of circumstances. The only child of Catherine Sterner (née Ulrike Birkholz) and Franz Kayser, John spent his early years in Nazi Germany. The family was fortunate to escape, as his father was Jewish, and they arrived through Ellis Island in 1939. This legacy molded John’s view of the world as he watched his parents start over in Queens, then Bronxville, NY, and finally Hackettstown, NJ. John remained devoted to his parents throughout their lives and visited them often with his children. John enlisted in the Air Force in 1955; as he would often say: “I only cared about baseball and girls…the military was not only my best option, but my only option.” He served four years and could talk about his time in Greenland as if it were yesterday:

“We were the worst cadre of soldiers the commanding officer had ever seen, and so we were sent to a frozen wasteland.” He left the Air Force in 1959 to attend the University of New Hampshire where he met his first wife, Joanne Kayser, with whom he had six children. An aspiring scholar, John earned an MA at Ohio State University and a PhD in Political Science from Claremont Graduate University in 1969. His focus on Plato’s Republic and other ancient philosophers cemented his desire to understand timeless political problems. John started teaching at Whitman College, WA, and ultimately became an Associate Professor at UNH, where he taught for 50 years. His children remember weekend afternoons with Dad sitting amidst a stack of student papers, red pen in hand, and a Patriots or Red Sox game on TV with instructions that we were not to utter a word till the Sox won. Thousands of students passed through his classroom doors and were captivated by powerful lectures that connected the past to the present, from Socrates to Toni Morrison. Even at 82, Professor Kayser commanded his students’ attention and had more energy in the classroom than many of his college freshmen. True to his upbringing, he would stroll in looking dapper in hat and vest, ready to discuss the everlasting problems of justice, the foundations of government, and whether the Patriots could really win a Super Bowl (they eventually did). John’s quest for knowledge led to travels throughout the world. He taught abroad in Hungary and England and made frequent trips to Europe, including a trip to Berlin to see where he spent the first two years of his life. He shared this wanderlust with his second wife, Suzanne Woodland, and their two daughters. John was proud of his children: coaching little league teams, attending ballet and orchestra concerts, and encouraging their various pursuits. John was happiest debating political philosophy, watching his favorite sports teams, smoking a good Cuban cigar, talking on the phone with his children, sampling pastries, reading a classic text, and complaining wryly about grammatical mistakes in the newspaper. John lived a long and full life but left it too soon. Nevertheless, he shared Socrates’ belief about mortality: To fear death, my friends, is no other than to think oneself wise when one is not, to think one knows what one does not know. He is survived by his wife Suzanne Woodland, children Cristofre, Kimberly, Karin, Kenneth, Carolyn, Amy, Hillary, and Emily, twelve grandchildren, and many devoted friends. A memorial service will be held on Saturday, June 3 at 3pm at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics in the West Wing of Saint Anselm College in Manchester, NH. Donations in John’s name can be made to the Weeks Public Library in Greenland or to the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy. Arrangements through the National Cremation Society The Villages, Florida.