William Mulloy’s grave site on Easter Island. Photo by Marla Wold

Frank Morin

1917-2012

Vincent Hart Stefan

1961-2017

Georgia Lee passed away in her home on July 9, 2016 after a brief illness. By her side was her granddaughter Rachel Lee and Cynthia Morin, daughter of Georgia’s lifelong partner, Frank. Georgia was loved and respected by many people. She inspired us with her sense of humor, intellect, work ethic and knowledge. Georgia will be deeply missed by her family, friends and colleagues.

Georgia was born in Alameda, CA in 1926, and lived in Orinda for most of her childhood. She married Charles Fleshman in 1947, and they had 3 children: Stephen, Wendy and Stacey.

Georgia received her Associate of Arts degree from Stephens College in Columbia, MO, in 1945. In 1948, she graduated from the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland with a Bachelor’s degree in Art and a teaching credential.

Later in life, at age 45, Georgia decided to go back to school, proving that it’s never too late to follow your dreams. In 1978 she received her MA in Art History from U.C. Santa Barbara. In 1986 she received her Ph.D. in Archaeology from University of California, Los Angeles, with her thesis on the rock art of Easter Island. When asked what she would do with a Ph.D. in Archaeology, she replied’ “there’s always room at the top”!

Georgia’s Ph.D. was based on six years of fieldwork on Easter Island and culminated in the publication of her classic book, The Rock Art of Easter Island: Symbols of Power, Prayers to the Gods, which presents the first island-wide comprehensive documentation of thousands petroglyphs and rock paintings found on the island. Georgia began her fieldwork on Easter Island in 1981, entering into close relationships with the islanders, both men and women. In her 2006 book, Rapa Nui, Island of Memory, she describes her relationships with the Rapanui people, weaving strands of communal tales together. She also wrote the first guidebook to the island, An Uncommon Guide to Easter Island, in 1981, a time when tourists were not common. Much of Georgia’s work on Easter Island and in Hawaii was implemented by University Research Expeditions through the University of California, Berkeley. Always an artist, Georgia sketched and painted the many places she visited and worked at during her lifetime.

In addition to her work on Easter Island, Georgia undertook extensive archaeological work in Hawaii, leading several projects to document the rock art of the Hawaiian Islands. Her seminal book, Spirit of Place, Petroglyphs of Hawaii, has been reprinted several times and continues to be a popular book in Hawaii to this day.

Georgia’s extensive research in California included study and documentation of Chumash and other rock art sites in Central California. She wrote the children’s book, A Day with a Chumash, as well as the classic publications The Portable Cosmos: Effigies, Ornaments, and Incised Stones from the Chumash Area and The Chumash Cosmos.

Georgia was a founding member of the Easter Island Foundation, established in 1981, whose mission was to build a research library on Easter Island in addition to promoting awareness of the island’s fragile cultural heritage. Under her guidance, the Foundation has supported the creation of the William Mulloy Library at the Museo Antropológico P. Sebastián Englert Museum, established scholarship program for university students of Easter Island ancestry, provided grants for research projects on Easter Island and sponsored International symposia about Easter Island and Polynesia. She initiated the Easter Island Foundation’s publishing program and was the founding editor of the Rapa Nui Journal, which began publication in 1989.

In 1985 Georgia met Frank Morin. Frank, a retired physicist, would become her lifelong partner and collaborator. He accompanied Georgia on field excursions throughout many parts of Polynesia and California, surveying and mapping the sites she documented. They also worked together as a team on many of the Easter Island Foundation’s book publications and the Rapa Nui Journal; Georgia as the writer and editor and Frank as the designer and set up person. They were rarely apart, and had many wonderful adventures during their time and travels together. Frank passed away in 2012 and left a huge void in Georgia’s life.

Georgia was featured in Sky Bergman’s documentary film, Lives Well Lived, which tells the life stories and philosophies of 40 elders and captures their ideals and ideas. When asked by Sky to define a life well lived, Georgia replied, “I think doing something you love, contributing to something. I’ve always felt you need to sit loosely in the saddle of life as you go down that long trail.”

Georgia inspired many people who she met along the path of her life, several who went on to become archaeologists themselves. She made an impression on everyone she met. She was always ready to help and share information with anyone who contacted her with a request. She had friends all over the world and many that she knew via email, which was her preferred daily method of communication.

Georgia’s collection of modern replicas of ancient Rapanui wooden carvings was donated to the Burke Museum in Seattle, Washington; her extensive Easter Island slide collection is housed at the Bancroft Library at U.C. Berkeley and at the Museo Antropológico P. Sebastián Englert on Easter Island, and her Chumash materials have been donated to the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, where she was a Research Associate for many years.

Donations can be made to the Easter Island Foundation’s Georgia Lee Memorial Scholarship Fund, which provides university scholarships for students of Easter Island ancestry.

Georgia Lee Memorial Scholarship

Frank Morin, a key member of the Easter Island Foundation since its inception in 1989, served as co-editor of Rapa Nui Journal as well as the EIF treasurer for many years. He was a frequent collaborator with his longtime companion, Dr. Georgia Lee, in petroglyph surveys and research on Hawai’i, Easter Island, and California. Frank died peacefully at home on July 22, 2012. He was 94, still with the verve and enthusiasm of a much younger man.

Born Francis Joseph Morin into a musical family in New England, he went on to study physics and chemistry, first at the University of New Hampshire, and then in graduate school at the University of Wisconsin. With the coming of WWII, he was plucked out of graduate school and recruited to work on advanced projects at the famous Bell Labs, at that time located in New York. There he collaborated with a number of eminent physicists, most notably Philip Anderson, winner of the Nobel prize in 1977. (From what I have been able to learn, Frank almost won one himself. Anderson called him “a superb experimentalist”.) Indeed, he was very much involved with the early development of transistors, thermistors and integrated circuits. He holds three U.S. patents for metal oxide semiconductor procedures that he developed in the late 1940s.

Frank continued at Bell Labs after the war but, with the rapid development of the U.S. space program, he moved west in 1962 having been asked by the North American Aviation’s Science Division to set up a lab there and, subsequently, to become its Director. There he was active in NASA’s Apollo Moon Program and a member of North American’s Rocketdyne Division, later Rockwell International. Frank retired in 1980 and moved north to the seaside village of Los Osos, California. A couple of years later his son Michael took him to hear a talk given by Georgia Lee on her work on Easter Island. They met and soon thereafter took up life together.

It was thanks to Halley’s Comet that I first met Frank and Georgia; I was on Easter Island photographing the famous comet for NASA, and they arrived aboard a cruise ship where they had been giving lectures about the island and the comet. We hit it off like gangbusters from the beginning, the three of us plus my late beloved wife, Matty.

Among our happiest of times was when the four of us rented various houses, two weeks at a time, first on Kauai, then at Côte de Beaune in the Burgundy Region in France where we spotted a billboard advertising Morin et fils wine — and followed it up with a delicious wine tasting in nearby Nuits-Saint-Georges where we found Frank’s roots. And lastly, we enjoyed Italy’s magical Tuscany. There was, too, a leisurely cruise from Tahiti to Easter Island that we took in 1991 which carried us and some 100 others to dozens of South Pacific isles along the way as documented in Georgia’s book, Te Moana Nui: Exploring Lost Isles of the South Pacific.

I honestly can’t count the number of times Matty and I stayed with them in their lovely home in Los Osos, and their hospitality was infinite. So seemed Frank’s knowledge about so many things. He had the most amazing ability to discuss all manner of subjects, from physics and astronomy (and sci-fi — he was a devout “trekkie”), to wine making and tasting, music, religion (Buddhism especially), and of course Hawai’i and Easter Island. And the good table; Frank was a master chef. And few know that a younger Frank was an accomplished concert pianist and was a featured soloist with the University of Vermont symphony orchestra. He was a serious student of Jungian psychology. Frank, in his gentle fashion, tried to explain to me what it was all about but alas, I was an inattentive student and he got nowhere with me.

For a number of years — until his knees went arthritic — the sand dunes and beaches of Los Osos were one of Frank’s favorite places to be. (The image above of Frank on his favorite beach was taken by Steven Roger Fischer). Frequently, he would take long (7 kilometer) walks along the shoreline, stripped down to as little as possible. Even to his last days he would often do, as Georgia used to say, his imitation of a lizard out in the walled-in back garden of their home, soaking up the California sun.

I last visited Frank with my dear companion Gabriela a little over a year ago, and he was still just as sharp as ever. He explained that his only major problem, the deterioration of his lungs, may have resulted from all the toxic fumes that he had inhaled as a student. (He was a non-smoker.)

Frank is survived by his devoted companion of many years, Georgia Lee; seven loving children, Thomas, Michael, Cynthia, Peter, Andrew, Sarah and Sylvia; and their mother, the former Joanne O’Riordon of Baltimore, MD., and a number of grandchildren.

William Liller, August 2012

Donations can be made to the Frank Morin Memorial Scholarship Fund, which provides university scholarships for students of Easter Island ancestry.

Frank Morin Memorial Scholarship

This is a brief memoir to celebrate the life of Alan Drake, sometimes known as Alan Davis-Drake, who was instrumental to us in the early days of the Easter Island Foundation. He visited Easter Island only once but it was love-at-first-sight and he never got over it.

Alan volunteered to help out with producing the (then-titled) Rapa Nui Notes, and went on to publish articles about the island, edit submissions, set up issues for publications, and create excellent maps for both the Rapa Nui Journal and for books published by the Foundation. He authored and designed a delightful book, Easter Island: The Ceremonial Center of Orongo, which has been mostly overlooked. This is a mistake on the part of book-buyers because it is a marvelous little book on the site. It is identified as being published by “Cloud Mountain Press”, which was Alan’s “baby”. The credits page lists the book as being designed by “Bootswell Stevenson McKenna” – which was Alan’s alter-ego, of course. And he created the Rapanui Dingbat Font that we use today–whenever we need a dingbat.

Alan also was editor of ARCHAE, described as “a paleo-review of the literary arts exploring mythical and kitchen sink parallels between archaic and modern life.” Alan  described himself as having “… appeared internationally both as poet and performance poet. His most recent collection of poems is Te Moana, an orchestrated choral accompaniment for ballet based on a voyage across the Pacific.”

Alan came along on one of our working field trips to Lana’i, Hawai’i, in the 1980s. He was the Star. We do not remember ever laughing so hard; having Alan around was like having a troop of monkeys on speed. We still talk and laugh about that trip. And Alan.

More recently, he came to the rescue of the EIF. When our website was lost at the beginning of 2010, we contacted him in the hope that he might have some material from the earlier days when he created our original website. It was a longshot, after all these years. Alan not only helped us get our website up and running in record time, but empowered and inspired us to keep it going. We will always remember him with kindness in our hearts.

Alan Drake has left us, but we will miss him and his great smile, and his off-beat ways.

We wish you smooth sailing, Bootswell.

Marilyn Fedrizzi Love passed away on August 10, 2018 after a brief illness. Marilyn was a retired Professor of Anthropology and was living in Rock Springs, Wyoming with her husband Charles M. Love, also a retired Professor of Anthropology and Geology. Both Marilyn and Charlie taught at Western Wyoming College in Wyoming. Marilyn studied the culture of Easter Island extensively, and received multiple degrees related to Business, Cultural Anthropology, Psychology, and International Studies. Marilyn joined the Easter Island Foundation’s Board of Directors in 2017.

She married Paul J. Picerno and had three children; Frank Picerno, Michelle Romero and Ginny Padilla all of Rock Springs, Wyoming. They later divorced. In May of 1998 she married Gerome A. Fedrizzi and he preceded her in death on October 17, 2016. On December 23, 2017 she married Charles M. Love. She enjoyed gardening and had a house full of plants. She also loved the outdoors, fishing, and traveling, especially to Easter Island.

Survivors include her husband Charles M. Love of Rock Springs; her son Frank Picerno (and his wife Sherry) of Rock Springs; her daughters Michelle Romero and Ginny Padilla (and husband Mark) both of Rock Springs; two brothers Vern Baggett (and wife Kay) of Wyoming and Donny Baggett (and wife Carolyn) of Utah; her sister Anita Dubas o(f Colorado); her stepson Raleigh and her stepdaughter Jordan and family; nine grandchildren Aspen, Colter, Olivia, Landon, Xavier, Alex, Shad, Andrew and Kaylee; five great-grandchildren Lyric, Titan, Amara, Acadia, and Aiden; and several cousins, nieces and nephews. She was preceded in death by her parents; her second husband Gerry Fedrizzi and her brother. 

Vincent Hart Stefan, Professor of Anthropology at Lehman College and the CUNY Graduate Center, died on March 31, 2017, after a long struggle with primary sclerosing cholangitis (PCS) and ulcerative colitis.  He was 55 years old. Vince served Lehman College, CUNY and the broader community in many ways, including as Chair of the Department of Anthropology at Lehman from 2009-2014 and as a forensic anthropologist working with numerous medical examiners across the region. He was a long-time member and supporter of the Easter Island Foundation.

Vince was born November 24, 1961 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and was a naturalized citizen of the United States. He attended the University of Wyoming from 1980 through 1984 and received a BA in Zoology and minored in Physical Anthropology. After college, he joined the U.S. Navy, rising from Ensign to Lt. Commander prior to his separation in 1996. He served with distinction on several ships, focusing on electronic warfare & electrical engineering, and served as Chief Engineer on a minesweeper. He retired from active duty in March of 1993 and was a reservist in the United States Naval Reserve until full separation in 1996.

He attended the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, and received an MS in Anthropology in 1995 and his Ph.D. in 2000. His dissertation was entitled Craniometric Variation and Biological Affinity of the Prehistoric Rapanui (Easter Islanders): Their Origin, Evolution, and Place in Polynesian Prehistory, which was published as a book by Verlag in 2009. As a student, Vince wrote several articles and over 80 case reports as a forensic anthropological consultant to the Office of the Medical Investigator, University of New Mexico School of Medicine, Albuquerque, NM and to New Mexico State Law Enforcement Agencies.

Vince was hired as an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Lehman College, CUNY, in 2000 and later became a full-time Assistant Professor. He was promoted to Associate Professor in 2006 and Professor in 2013. He participated fully in the life of the Anthropology Department at the College, teaching several courses and mentoring undergraduate students. His courses (both the general Introductions to Human Evolution and Human Variation; and the more specialized Human Osteology and Forensic Anthropology) were sought after by students. He served as the Co-Director of the Interdisciplinary B.S. Major in Anthropology (Physical), Biology and Chemistry throughout his career at Lehman.

Vince was elected to the CUNY graduate faculty in 2001 and was simultaneously a Core Faculty member of NYCEP (the New York Consortium in Evolutionary Primatology). He taught courses in statistics and human biology, served on the Admissions committee and advised several Ph.D. students. He also was an Anthropology Panel Member, University Committee on Research Awards/PSC-CUNY Faculty Research Awards from 2003-2007.

Vince’s own research focused on human craniology, especially as related to the peopling of the Pacific. He studied the osteology of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and published a number of papers on this and other Pacific island populations. In 2016, he edited and co-authored Skeletal Biology of the Ancient Rapanui (Easter Islanders) for Cambridge University Press with his University of Wyoming mentor and long-time colleague George Gill. Vince and George, who were close colleagues, went to Easter Island together twice to collect data on the Rapa Nui skeletal material collection. Vince worked with UW Anthropology students on both trips and on various other research projects.

In 2004, Vince was named a Fellow of the Physical Anthropology Section, American Academy of Forensic Sciences and in 2005, he was named a Diplomate of the American Board of Forensic Anthropology (DABFA), the highest recognition in his field. He served the Medical Examiners in several counties in NY, participating in and writing reports on 77 cases from 2000 to 2011, when federal funding replaced the need for outside consultants. He wrote several journal articles on forensic anthropological questions in addition to site reports. He participated annually in the meetings of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences, often presenting his research results. He served as a forensic anthropological member of DMORT II, part of the National Disaster Medical System, U.S. Public Health Service (later Department of Homeland Security), working at World Trade Center (September, 2001) and after Hurricane Katrina in Mississippi (September-October, 2005).

In addition to anthropology, Vince enjoyed hunting, and he spent several weeks each fall hunting large game in Northern Minnesota along the Canadian border. He was an avid outdoorsman when he had the time and energy. He was a Renaissance man with many interests within the forensic community and outside of academics. In addition, he enjoyed working with his hands and doing a myriad of home improvement projects.

Vince is survived by his wife of 28 years, Joy Stefan; his father, Hart Stefan; and his sister, Terri Stefan Nevarez. For all who knew Vince, he was clearly seen as a dedicated anthropologist, a hard-working individual and a reliable person.  He will be missed very much by all those who knew him.

We express our appreciation to Joy Stefan and George Gill for contributing the information above, and special thanks to Paul Horley for the image of Vince.