Obituary: Robert Evans Dohrenwend

As received from the Reid Funeral Service and Chapel:

Dr. Robert Evans Dohrenwend, 81, died at his home after a long bout with lymphoma on Sunday, September 27, 2020. He was a resident of Elo, MI for the last 45 years.

A graduate of Dartmouth College, he was a student at the Sorbonne in the late 1950’s, and then later studied in Germany. After graduation from the US Army Language School in Arabic, he served in the Army Security Agency and was honorably discharged as an SP-5. He received a degree in forestry from the SUNY College of Forestry, and went on to study micrometeorology and physical ecology, obtaining his doctorate from Syracuse University. He had wide interest, and wrote many published papers, articles, books, and translations.

He carried out field research on high altitude tropical ecosystems at the Centro Cientifico Topicale in San Jose, Costa Rica. He worked as a forester for the New York Botanical Garden, and was a faculty member of the Department of Botany at the University of Florida where he taught plant ecology. Here in the UP, he was on the faculty of MTU and Suomi College. He was particularly intrigued by thermodynamics and fluid mechanics and their application to the understanding of forest ecosystem behavior.

Together, he and his wife visited most of the United States, much of Canada, as well as Central America, Europe, Iceland, and New Zealand. A student of the fighting arts since the 1960’s, he was Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Asian Martial Arts for a brief period, and then an associate editor of that publication. He was also Editor-in-Chief of Classical Fighting Arts. An avid hunter and archer, he worked for ten years with close friends at Firearms and Supplies in Hancock.
For ten years he was a principal translator for a major auction house in Europe. Fluent in several languages, he compiled two multilingual dictionaries for collectors and historians in the field of antique small arms. He had a life-long fascination for ancient and classical languages.

In recent years he began drawing with pencil and with pen and ink. He especially enjoyed sketching rural and wildland landscapes, trees, birds, and mammals.

He is survived by his beloved wife of 53 years, Jeffrey Dohrenwend, his daughter, Trudy North of Lethbridge, Alberta, five grandchildren, numerous in-laws, nieces, nephews, many good friends, and an enormous personal library.

A memorial funeral service will be held at a later date.

Dr. Dohrenwend’s obituary may also be viewed and condolences sent to the family at www.reidfuneralservicechapel.com.

The Reid Funeral Service and Chapel, L’Anse has been entrusted with the funeral arrangements.