Deceased March 14, 2022
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In Memory
Skip, a lifelong educator, died March 14 from Alzheimer’s disease, after battling dementia for many years.
He was born Nov. 7, 1937, to Virginia Millicent Peterson and Richard Twinem McCann.
His wife, Gretchen, recalls that Skip “was sent to Hotchkiss School, and his greatest adolescent rebellion, never forgotten by his mother, was turning down Yale to attend Amherst.” After Amherst, he earned an M.A. in education from Harvard.
After Harvard, he taught English and social studies at a middle school in Newton, Mass., until 1965, when he was called to Washington to serve in the U.S. Office of Education, where his team received the Superior Service Award from the Commissioner of Education.
In 1974, he joined Research for Better Schools, working with teachers, schools, districts, state departments of education and university researchers for more than three decades.
Skip was an engaged and committed father, leaving for work at dawn so he could play with his children before dinner. He blasted classical music—Beethoven, Sibelius and Mahler—on the downstairs stereo. His enthusiasms had lasting influence on his children: his daughter is an expert in early childhood public policy, and his son a professional musician.
Skip worked until 80, when he and Gretchen downsized from their suburban Philadelphia home to an apartment in Chicago, near son Andrew and his family.
In Chicago, he joined others with memory loss and their caregivers in the Good Memories Choir. The loss of such support at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic coincided with a steep decline in his condition. In June 2021, he and Gretchen moved to Oregon to be near their daughter, and Skip joined residential memory care.
He is survived by Gretchen, children Carey and Andrew, their spouses, and grandchildren Griffin and Adara.
Claude Erbsen ’59