Former UVM history professor helped found the university's historic preservation program
Neil R. Stout, a professor of history at the University of Vermont for nearly 40 years, died at his home in Hardwick, Vt., on February 3, six months after his 90th birthday. He was a beloved father, grandfather, husband and life partner; a warm neighbor; colleague; and friend, whose upbeat spirit continued through his final days. He was born August 12, 1932, in Lowell, Ohio, and grew up on a small family farm that had no electricity or indoor plumbing through much of his childhood and no telephone until 1963. His father, Ralph, was a farmer; his mother, Carrie, a schoolteacher. He learned to drive a tractor at the age of 9 and seldom wore shoes in spring and summer. As the big brother of only sisters, he felt all he really lacked in his happy childhood were boys to play with. Consequently, he believed, he was never as good at sports as a lean farm boy who would grow to be 6’3” might have been. There was a benefit, though: He became a lifelong bookworm. He excelled in school and won both academic awards and farming prizes, through 4-H. It was widely expected that he would go to an agricultural college, but with his mother’s encouragement, he applied to Harvard and was accepted with a full-tuition scholarship. At a freshman mixer his first week there, he met Marilyn (Mainey) Blumenstiel, a Simmons College student also from Ohio. By senior year, they were engaged. After graduating with a degree in history in 1954, he enlisted in the Army and had the good fortune of being sent to France in peacetime. He returned to America in 1956 to marry Mainey and begin graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin, earning a PhD in 1961. His first faculty position was at Texas A&M, but, eager to leave the segregated South, he accepted an offer in 1964 from the University of Vermont. He remained on the UVM history faculty until 2001, and he and Mainey built a happy life in Burlington, raising two children and giving them the same love and support that his parents had given him. Though he specialized in colonial America, he ranged widely in his academic work, helping to found UVM’s historic preservation program, directing the University’s program in cultural history and museology, and teaching interdisciplinary courses, such as a class on autobiographies. At the time of his…
Former UVM history professor helped found the university's historic preservation program
Neil R. Stout, a professor of history at the University of Vermont for nearly 40 years, died at his home in Hardwick, Vt., on February 3, six months after his 90th birthday. He was a beloved father, grandfather, husband and life partner; a warm neighbor; colleague; and friend, whose upbeat spirit continued through his final days. He was born August 12, 1932, in Lowell, Ohio, and grew up on a small family farm that had no electricity or indoor plumbing through much of his childhood and no telephone until 1963. His father, Ralph, was a farmer; his mother, Carrie, a schoolteacher. He learned to drive a tractor at the age of 9 and seldom wore shoes in spring and summer. As the big brother of only sisters, he felt all he really lacked in his happy childhood were boys to play with. Consequently, he believed, he was never as good at sports as a lean farm boy who would grow to be 6’3” might have been. There was a benefit, though: He became a lifelong bookworm. He excelled in school and won both academic awards and farming prizes, through 4-H. It was widely expected that he would go to an agricultural college, but with his mother’s encouragement, he applied to Harvard and was accepted with a full-tuition scholarship. At a freshman mixer his first week there, he met Marilyn (Mainey) Blumenstiel, a Simmons College student also from Ohio. By senior year, they were engaged. After graduating with a degree in history in 1954, he enlisted in the Army and had the good fortune of being sent to France in peacetime. He returned to America in 1956 to marry Mainey and begin graduate studies at the University of Wisconsin, earning a PhD in 1961. His first faculty position was at Texas A&M, but, eager to leave the segregated South, he accepted an offer in 1964 from the University of Vermont. He remained on the UVM history faculty until 2001, and he and Mainey built a happy life in Burlington, raising two children and giving them the same love and support that his parents had given him. Though he specialized in colonial America, he ranged widely in his academic work, helping to found UVM’s historic preservation program, directing the University’s program in cultural history and museology, and teaching interdisciplinary courses, such as a class on autobiographies. At the time of his…