Dr. Donald Dwight Hook's Obituary
Dr. Donald Dwight Hook, age 89, passed away on July 6, 2018. Son of Dwight Carlisle and Eunice Fowler Hook, he was born on December 16, 1928 in Charlotte, NC. He was predeceased by his wife of 63 years, Harriett Gay Blackwell. He is survived by a daughter, Mrs. Karen Fowler Hook Chase and her husband, Steven Mark Chase, of Middleburg, VA; a son, Dr. Terence Blackwell Hook and his wife, Andrea Salvatore Hook, of Jericho Center, Vermont; and three grandchildren: Catherine Fowler Hook, of New York City, Elizabeth Trafford Hook, of Portland, ME, and Aimee Maitland Kendrick Chase, of Washington, DC.
Dr. Hook graduated from E.C. Glass High School, Lynchburg, VA in 1946. He attended Washington and Lee University from 1946-1948 as a pre-med student and then entered Emory University, from which he graduated in 1950 with a Bachelor's Degree. He served twice in the USAF, first during the Occupation of Germany and throughout the Korean War as an enlisted man for over two years and then as an officer for the next three years until he was forced to retire from active duty due to disablement until his full retirement from military duty in 1960. He attended a number of tech schools during his service in the fields of traffic and cryptanalysis and underwent further intensive foreign-language training in Russia and Czech at the Army Language School in Monterey, CA, during all of 1951. He later attended OSI/FBI school in Washington, DC, where he received his credentials as a federal agent. He continued his studies in criminology at the University of Vienna. His major assignment was as an intelligence agent in the South Germany District, serving Germany and Czechoslovakia, although he combined this work with counter-intelligence and criminal cases in Europe and the United States.
On August 18, 1954, Don married Harriett Gay Blackwell in Munich, Germany, where they lived until Don was reassigned back to the United States. He received extensive medical treatment over the next year and a half, first in the U.S. Naval Hospital at St. Alban's, New York, where their first child, Karen, was born, and later at the VA Hospital in Richmond, VA, and then under private care before beginning graduate study.
Returning to civilian life, he received his Master's Degree in German literature from Duke University in 1958 and did further graduate work in German and historical linguistics at the University of North Carolina. From 1958 on, he studied at Brown University, taking his doctorate there in linguistics in 1961. Most of his teaching career in the fields of German language and literature and linguistics was spent at Trinity College, Hartford, CT, where he also served for over seven years as chairman of the Department of Modern Languages and Literature.
Dr. Hook wrote extensively over his entire adult life. He was the author or co-author of some four dozen books and over 100 articles and stories on various subjects, both scholarly and fictional, and including linguistics, theolinguistics, history, sociology, religion, gun control, German language and literature, politics, and mental aberrations. Aside from writing, he was an avid target shooter and gun collector, gardener, swimmer and backyard pool caretaker, and car and airplace enthusiast. During their more than 60 years of marriage, he and his wife traveled to 38 foreign countries and throughout the United States. He was a member of the Disabled American Veterans (DAV) and the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW). A devout Christian, Dr. Hook faithfully served - in many roles, from on the altar to behind the scenes - throughout his life at whatever church he and his family attended.
A Chapel Committal Service will be held on Wednesday, July 18, 2018 at 11:00 AM, at Delaware Veterans Memorial Cemetery, 26669 Patriots Way; Millsboro, DE.
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