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The passing of Sylvia Plath's family and friends

The recent news that Sylvia Plath's brother, Warren Joseph Plath, passed away was sad news to receive. I am grateful to JulieMcC for alerting me via Twitter. 

One of the things I am trying to keep track of is when family and friends of Plath's pass away so that we can update their life dates in footnotes to The Letters of Sylvia Plath. You would not be incorrect to believe that one should spend their time in better ways, but keeping up-to-date on this is, I feel, important. 

So after I learned of Warren Plath's passing, I went through both volumes of the Letters and searched for obituaries and death notices for anyone with an open-ended life span. Some of the people even passed away before 2017 when Volume 1 came out, but I either missed them or did not search deep enough or, in fact, the information may not have been as readily accessible as it is now.

So here is a list of those who have passed away along with links to pages about their lives. May they all rest in peace. 

Volume I:

Warren Joseph Plath, (27 April 1935-14 February 2021)

Max Gaebler, (1921-2018)

Louise Giesey White, (1932-2020)

Elizabeth (‘Betsy’) Whittemore MacArthur (1933–2018)

Charlotte Kennedy Ehrenhaft (1932–2020)

Sarah Frank Chaffin (1932–2017)

Sonya Zelinkoff Simon (1932–2020)

Elizabeth Storer Paynter (1929–2020)

Philip Emerald McCurdy (1935– 2019)

Beverly L. Newell (1929– 2019)

Maria Canellakis Michaelides (1929–2020)

Holly Stair Greer (1931–2018)

James DuBois McNeely (1933–2017)

Nadine Neuburg Doughty (1934–2018)

Carol Koch Kaufman (1933–2018)

Elizabeth Claiborne Philips Handleman (1933–2019)

Alexander Goldstein, Jr (1935–2011)

David Holleman (1927–2020)

Norman Richard Shapiro (1930–2020)

Richard Laurence Sassoon (1934–2017)

Ann Birstein (1927–2017)

Carl M. Shakin (1934–2016)

Robin Chapman (1933–2020)

Richard Wilbur (1921–2017)

William Stanley Merwin (1927–2019)

Mary Bailey Derr Knox (1932–2017)

Rosemary Nesta Yale (1929–2019)


Volume II: Note that people who appeared in Volume II as well are not relisted below. 
David N. Keightley (1932–2017)

Joan Maxwell Bramwell (1923–2020)

Alfred Alvarez (1929–2019)

Marie Edith Borroff (1923–2019)

Kathleen Fraser (1935–2019)

Nicholas Mosley (1923–2017)

Sallie McFague (1933–2019)

Chou Wen-chung (1923–2019)

Howard Sand Rogovin (1927–2019)

Andrew Sinclair (1935–2019)

Leo A. Goodman (1928–2021)

Alan Anderson (1922–2016)

John Sherwood (1913–2002)

Charles Osborne (1927–2017)

Sylvia Plath was connected with an absolutely impressive circle of people and the above is just a few of those mentioned in her Letters.  

All links accessed 1 March 2021.

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