Deceased July 30, 2019

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In Memory

John “Mac” MacMillan died on Aug. 7 in Boise, Idaho, with wife Roberta, daughters Valerie and Joan and other loving family members by him. He had lived with Alzheimer’s for many years.

Mac came to Amherst from Summit (N.J.) High School. He was a member of Chi Phi, ran track, played squash and, modest in size but great in heart, played rugby. His passion was geology. Mac’s senior thesis demonstrated that passion, as he measured individual grains of sand for weathering effects of water flow in the former swimming pool of the old Pratt Gymnasium, repurposed as the geology building.

In summer 1965, he headed to Wyoming for fieldwork, returning quite taken by the landscape of the West. He earned driver legend status on a 1966 Grand Canyon mapping expedition, piloting his classmate-packed Ford Falcon to Arizona and back on spring break. Mac’s driving fortitude is celebrated in the poem “Sugar Mountain” yours truly penned, and read to him by phone, for the 50th reunion.

After a Ph.D. in geology from Northwestern, where he met wife-to-be, Roberta, Mac became a tenured faculty member at New Mexico Mining and Technology Institute. After 17 years, modern man that Mac was, the couple relocated to Idaho to support Roberta’s career in computer science. Mac practiced geology on the side and dedicated himself to the raising of their two daughters and generous service to church and community.

In daughter Valerie’s words, “Mac’s love was deeper and more stable than the bedrock he enjoyed studying.” His insight, gentle laugh and persistent thoughtfulness endeared him to his Amherst classmates and were gifts to his students and to his family.

A memorial service was held at Immanuel Lutheran Church in Boise on Aug. 28.

Doug Dunlap ’66

 

 

John  “Mac” MacMIllan, Amherst Class of 1966

 

In the run up to the 50th Reunion I sought to reconnect with John “Mac” MacMIllan, classmate and friend, whom I had not seen since graduation. We had exchanged letters for a time, but correspondence lapsed as respectively we moved about the world or nation for graduate school, field experiences, work, and such.

 

One of my most enduringAmherst memories is a senior year geology mapping expedition down the Colorado River into the Grand Canyon. Although I was a history major, not a geology major, Mac knew of my love for the outdoors, encouraged me to take a geology course, which I did, as an elective; invited me to sign on to the Canyon trip. He invited me to ride with him and others in his Ford Falcon, one of a number of 2-3 car-loads of Amherst students that would make their respective ways across the country and back, for this low budget and tightly scheduled spring break expedition.

 

With the able assistance of the Alumni Office I reached Mac’s wife, Roberta, at their home in Idaho, who gave me the sad news that Mac had been living with Alzheimer’s illness, for quite some time, and circumstances were such that he was  about to enter a residential care facility. It was a most difficult time in the life of the MacMillan family. Mac would not be going to the Reunion.

 

I expressed, of course, my deep concern for Mac’s well-being, and for her, and for their family – who I would learn included two adult daughters, Valerie and Joan. I identified myself as a classmate who had been with Mac on the geology mapping expedition down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon.

 

“Oh!”, she replied, “Mac talks of that trip all the time! He loved that trip. He keeps a photo from that trip in our home - people gathered on a sandy beach around a cooking fire, some with Amherst shirts, river in the background. “

 

“I have the same photo on my wall. I am standing next to Mac.”

 

I had an idea. Suppose we bring the reunion to Mac? We could phone him from the Reunion, getting other classmateson the call. She loved the idea. On Saturday night of Reunion 2016, I made the call, joined by Russ Clark, and Jonathan Goodwin (now, the late Jon Goodwin, I am sorry to learn.), who had also been on the Canyon trip. Further, I penned a long, shaggy poem, which I titled “Sugar Mountain” about that 1966 car ride, celebrating Mac’s ironman driving performance, western sunsets, sleeping bags on the ground off the highway, buying thrift shop cowboy hats, haggling with a Route 66 Motel for the cheapest room  - for badly needed showers, a 400 mile detour so we could send a couple of hours in Vegas., where Mac won $2.00 playing penny machines downtown.

 

 

 

 

 

I arranged with Roberta for a subsequent phone call to read the poem to him. Mac was particularly lucid for both calls. – Reunion night and subsequent poem. Good old Mac, soft voice, easy laugh,: “Yes” he said, “yes, yes…” as he listened. Roberta attributed his alertness to his love for Amherst. Somehow he had gathered himself to be fully attentive for those two calls.

 

Mac’s death would occur three years later, in 2019.

 

Just last month(April 2021) Roberta called me. She thanked the Class of 1966 for reaching out to Mac as we did.  I know that Paul Dimond wrote to her, and perhaps John Mackenzie and others as well.  According to Roberta, Mac continued to speak of those phone calls, and the Canyon trip, for manymonths following our 50th Reunion.

 

My heart goes out to Roberta, and to their two daughters, Valerie and Joan.

 

Our dear classmate: John “Mac” Macmillan.

 

God rest his soul.

 

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Doug Dunlap

Class of 1966

May 16, 2021