Phillip Viereck ’48

Phillip Viereck ’48 died on May 20 of Alzheimer’s disease at the Vermont Veterans Home in Bennington, Vermont, where he had been living for the past four years. He grew up in Padanaram Village near Bedford, Massachusetts; came to Dartmouth in the Navy V-12 program; volunteered for overseas duty as a midshipman, second class; and was aboard the Casablanca class escort carrier USS Bismarck Sea when it was sunk on February 21, 1945, off Iowa Jima by kamikazes. After his discharge Phil earned his A.B. at Dartmouth, where he was a chairman of Cabin & Trail, member of Canoe Club and DOC, captain of Woodsmen’s Team and member of Kappa Kappa Kappa. He married Ellen Kingsbury in 1948 and they resided at Vassar College while he took courses until Ellen graduated in 1949. They then set off for Alaska, where Phil had previously worked for the Geodetic Survey, and lived for two years on remote King Island in the Bering Sea as teachers employed by the Alaska Native Service. Both earned master’s degrees in education at Plymouth State College and then spent two years teaching in Cordova, Alaska, before buying their long-term home in North Bennington, Vermont, where they raised one son and three daughters. For his thesis Phil had written and Ellen illustrated a book called Eskimo Island. They followed this collaboration with four more publications. Both taught in the regional school system and Phil was principal at North Bennington for the last 17 years before retirement.