Jack Anderson died late on Friday evening, October 20, after receiving relatively brief hospice care. His husband, George Dorris (married, July 22, 2006 in Toronto), had been by his side every day since he was taken to the hospital some two weeks before. The only child of Eleanore (Force) and George Anderson of Milwaukee, Jack is the last of his extended family. He is survived by George and George’s niece, Katie.
Jack came to Saint Peter’s in 2008 after a long membership at Park Avenue Christian. There he worked closely with the acclaimed organist, McNeil Robinson; artist James Teschner; and the church’s pastor, The Rev. John Wade Payne, to create a much-beloved Stations of the Cross. Saint Peter’s Senior Pastor, The Rev. Jared R. Stahler, said of Jack, “My earliest memory of Jack at Saint Peter’s was a thrilling conversation about this work – only the very tip of many published works: eleven volumes of poetry to date. How blessed Saint Peter’s became in receiving Jack into membership.”
Indeed, not long after joining Saint Peter’s Jack crafted a series of poetry reflections for use at the Vigil following the Holy Thursday liturgy. The structure Jack established as well as many of his carefully-selected poems remain in use to this day.
Jack encouraged and supported Roberto Lara in launching Dance at Saint Peter’s. Since inception, nearly three dozen pieces have been conceived and presented – each with intention and sensitivity, and as theology themselves. In a note for Dance at Saint Peter’s from Epiphany 2015, Jack wrote, “Even though dances are usually wordless and the movements in them may look strange to us, they can say much about how people in a society respond to one another and to life's great occasions of joy and sorrow. Dances invite us to look closely and, when we watch, we may be rewarded with Epiphanies of motion. The dances of the world are among God's gifts to us.”
The other great gift – love – is something Jack knew well in his 58 year relationship with George. While they were somewhat acquainted with one another at Northwestern University, where Jack completed a Bachelor’s degree (followed by a Master’s degree at Indiana University) and George earned a Ph.D., the two met in 1965 on the subway platform at Lincoln Center after a performance of the New York City Ballet. Jack invited George for coffee. He accepted. George returned the favor a day later, inviting Jack to an opera. He accepted. A week later, after a third date, their personal and professional lives were inextricably intertwined.
In 1977, Jack and George co-founded Dance Chronicle, a scholarly journal published by Routledge Press, which is seeking submissions for an issue to be printed in 2024. Jack has written for Dancing Times, Dance magazine and, of course, the New York Times. He contributed reviews and articles to the Times for nearly 50 years. While they each enjoyed teaching on their own, Jack and George most especially enjoyed teaching together. George recalls with great fondness two such teaching trips to Adelaide, Australia, which also gave them the opportunity to travel the country extensively.
At Saint Peter’s “coffee house” style Voices at Saint Peter’s event on January 19, 2018, Jack shared three poems – each as witty and clever as they are penetrating and observant – the last of which was “Sleeping on Trains.” Of all three poems he read that night, Jack said “these are all about opening outward in one way or another.” Jack certainly led a life marked by opening outward – the journey of life at its best – in this life, yes. And, in the next!
“And sometimes you shared with these strangers any words you had in common. And some shared with you bits of the bread they had brought along to nibble. And you came at last to where you are going. The train stopped.
You hauled your stuff off the rack and set forth along a long, long platform until you entered a tumult of morning papers, plate-rattling quick breakfasts, and voices crackling announcing things all surely momentous you couldn't understand.
But no matter. You didn’t need to. For there you stood. You were standing amidst echoes. Under big clocks. Yawning. Unwashed. A bit itchy and smelly.
And the end of the hall opened greatly unto the outside awaiting you to enter an uproar of sidewalks, cars, taxis, horns, buses and everything else there. Here. Where the cosmopolitanism of light welcomed you and everyone.
That’s what you did then. What we did. What we could do. How we traveled, how we journeyed, how we lived in that time. Lived and grew wise. Borders melting into fog.”
– Jack Anderson, excerpt from “Sleeping on Trains”
A memorial for Jack will be held at Saint Peter’s on Saturday, January 27, 2024 at 5:00 p.m. The celebration will feature dance, music, and poetry, and speakers who will talk about Jack’s life and work.
