Sam Meyer’s natural curiosity led him to a career that included everything from an academic analysis of esoteric Renaissance poetry to an essay distilling the meaning of colors in the titles of John D. MacDonald’s hard-boiled crime sagas. He was a prolific writer and an English professor at Morton College in Cicero from 1955 to 1983. Among his titles was a 1995 book about Francis Scott Key, who penned “The Star Spangled Banner.”
Mr. Meyer, 85, died Saturday, Jan. 11, of a stroke during surgery for cancer in Northwestern Medical Center in Chicago.
The Chicago resident taught at Bensenville High School and St. Charles High School in the late 1940s through mid-1950s. He also was a longtime member of the U.S. Navy Reserves. An offbeat inquisitiveness made him at home with topics ranging from Irish poet Edmund Spenser to MacDonald’s Travis McGee titles, which included “The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper” and “Green Ripple.”
“In the course of doing his research on titles, he also became interested in the title of `The Star Spangled Banner,'” said his daughter Robin, a State Department diplomat stationed in Nicaragua. “And that led to research for years and years on Francis Scott Key. As he was doing research, he became more intrigued about the person. What most intrigued him was Francis Scott Key’s patriotism, but also his humility.”
His fourchildren got a strong dose of Mr. Meyer’s attention to detail at an early grade.
“He was a real stickler. We’d write our essays, we’d go through quite a few rewrites. … It was a grueling process,” said his son, Harris. “Those were the most beautifully composed titles in grade school.”
His family returned the editing favors in the 1990s, when Mr. Meyer distributed draft chapters of “Paradoxes of Fame: The Francis Scott Key Story” to his children to read and critique, said Harris Meyer, law editor of the Daily Business Review in Miami.
“He accepted the critiques very graciously. We got to reciprocate. My mother did the typing and copy editing,” his son said.
Born and raised in Decorah, Iowa, Mr. Meyer attended Luther College in Decorah and obtained a bachelor’s degree in commerce from the University of Iowa in Iowa City, where he graduated cum laude in 1940.
“He was quite a child of the Great Depression,” said his daughter. “That shaped his political views.”
In 1941 he enlisted in the Navy and served in Cuba and Algeria. . After the war he was transferred to the Glenview Naval Air Station. Though he was discharged from active duty in 1946, he continued in the Naval Reserves until 1975.
Mr.Meyer received a master’s degree from the University of Chicago in 1948 and his doctorate in English from Loyola University Chicago in 1960.
He taught English and journalism at St. Charles High School from 1949 to 1951, when he took a similar position at Bensenville High School. In 1955 he began teaching at Morton Collegeand served as chairman of the language arts department.
Besides his son and daughter,Mr. Meyer is survived by his wife, Sarah; two more daughters, Lindy and June; two sisters, Leona and Sylvia Shinbrood; and two grandchildren.
A service will be held at 10 a.m. Tuesday in Piser Chapels, 5206 N. Broadway, Chicago.
