Aiken, William Minor
William Minor Aiken, 85, of Blacksburg, Va. and Truro, Mass., died on Wednesday, November 15, 2017, at his daughter, Katherine’s home in Portland, Ore. Born on September 27, 1932 in New York City, Bill was the son of Margaret Ballefant Lloyd and Frank Albert Aiken, Jr. of Bound Brook, N.J. He left home for St. Thomas Choir School in New York City at the age of 8, and attended preparatory school at St. George’s School in Newport, R.I., where he graduated at just 16 years old. He hopped a train to California where he worked at a bank and sung with a barber shop quartet until the next year when he began his college education at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn. After hopes for a career in baseball, short stints as an amateur boxer and an ROTC cadet, Bill found his way toward poetry and literature, which, together with music, sustained him for the rest of his life.
After college, he taught English and coached baseball at Darrow School and then completed his post-graduate education at Harvard University and Boston University, where he earned an M.A. in English Literature and a Ph.D. in American Poetry and Middle English. Bill made a career of his love for the English language as a professor at UMass Lowell, as an author of numerous essays, and as a poet, writing under his given name and his pseudonym, Julie Lechevsky.
Cape Cod was home to Bill. He enjoyed gathering mushrooms in the pine forest and fiddlehead fern in the brine marsh, naming the birds by their song, finding the constellations in the clear Truro sky, and listening to the sound of the summer breeze come across the Pamet. In summers off from teaching he built a house in Truro, with his own hands and with the help of his brother Dick and numerous friends. He also spent 18 months sifting the ground to build a clay tennis court for his family which became the focal point of North Pamet Road social life in the summer months.
He met his wife of 43 years in Truro. Bill and Jane Barrett Andrews were married at St Mary’s of the Harbor in Provincetown on August 11, 1962, and they remained together until her death on April 13, 2006. They raised three children in Truro until moving to Blacksburg, Va. in 1987, at which point Bill retired from teaching to concentrate on writing and Jane began teaching at Virginia Tech.
Bill spent his late retirement years doing what he enjoyed most: supporting his grandchildren in their various artistic, musical and athletic endeavors, playing tennis, traveling with Jane, going to Hardees for lunch with friends, and giving to charities and the community. He built homes for Habitat for Humanity, stocked shelves at the Interfaith Food Pantry, built and struck shopping areas each year for the Montgomery County Christmas Store, offered his services as a handyman through Virginia Mountain Housing, and played Jimmy van Heusen songs on the piano for “the old folks” at Warm Hearth Village.
He traveled to the Gulf Coast after hurricanes to assist with clean-up and reconstruction. His only lodging requirement was that there be a piano nearby; the rest of what he needed was in his tool bucket, a laundry bag for work clothes, and a small cardboard box that contained a plastic bottle of gin, some tonic water, peanuts, and Tums. Bill was the very definition of low maintenance.
Left to cherish Bill’s memory are his daughter, Katherine Minor Aiken Sullivan and husband, Dan of Portland, Ore.; his son, Matthew Andrews Aiken and wife, Patricia of Birmingham, Ala.; his daughter, Elizabeth Young Aiken of Nashville, Tenn.; his brother, Rev. Richard Lloyd Aiken of Truro, Mass.; his grandchildren, Aisha Andrews Mitchell, Kevin Andrews Sullivan and partner, Sara Chadouli, Charles Minor Sullivan and wife, Katie, Nicole Marie Sullivan, James Aiken Sullivan, Nicholas Minor Sullivan, William Parke Aiken, Campbell Bowman Aiken, and Epiphany Faith Eliza Aiken; his great grandchildren, Katherine Nicole Sullivan, Avery Sullivan, Adrijana Sullivan, and Miles Minor Sullivan; nieces and nephews, Alison, Andrew, Kathy, Lenna, Brian, and Kenneth; and many beloved friends.
A memorial service will be held 3 p.m. Sunday, December 17 at Christ Episcopal Church in Blacksburg, Virginia (reception will follow). A memorial service will also be held 4:30 p.m. Saturday, July 7 at St. Mary’s of the Harbor in Provincetown, Massachusetts followed by a burial at Snow’s Cemetery near the First Congregational Church in Truro.
The family wishes to thank Legacy Hospice for the loving and impeccable care in the last months of Bill’s life, members of Christ Episcopal Church, extended family, and the many friends and neighbors who provided prayers, letters, food, flowers, and loving support over the past nine months.
In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to the Blacksburg Interfaith Food Pantry at http://newrivercommunityaction.org/ or by calling New River Community Action at 540-951-8134.