116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Obituaries
The Gazette publishes obituaries on a daily basis. Use the search field above to search for obituaries by name or keyword. Readers can submit an obituary or submit a milestone to The Gazette. The obituary must be submitted before 1 p.m. for publication on thegazette.com at 6 p.m. and in the daily edition the next day, with the exception of obituaries for Sunday publication, which must be submitted by 1 p.m. on Fridays.
Hornsby, Roger Allen
Roger Allen Hornsby, emeritus professor of classics at the University of Iowa, died Tuesday morning at his home in Iowa City. He was 83. Cremation has taken place. The remains will be interred in Toronto with those of his wife, Jessie. A memorial service will take place in Iowa City, with time and location to be announced.
Professor Hornsby was born at Nye, Wis., on Aug. 8, 1926. He received his B.A. degree at Adelbert College of Western Reserve University in 1949. He attended Princeton University to receive his A.M. degree in 1951 and Ph.D. in 1952. Between 1952 and 1954 he served in the U.S. Army. He taught at the University of Iowa from 1954 until his retirement in 1991. On June 8, 1960, he married Jessie Lynn Gillespie, professor of French at the University of Iowa.
He served as chairman of the Department of Classics from 1966 to 1981. During his career he was also active in numerous regional and national professional organizations. He was president of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South in 1968-69, and on the board of directors of the American Philological Association from 1974-1977. He was a trustee of the American Academy in Rome, a fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies, a trustee of the Virgilian Society, and served on the council of the American Numismatic Society. After his retirement he was the Whichard Distinguished Professor at East Carolina University in 1997-98.
Professor Hornsby had wide interests in the study of the ancient world and the teaching of the languages it spoke. His publications focused on Latin poetry and included Reading Latin Poetry (1967), Patterns of Action in the Aeneid (1970) and numerous articles and reviews in professional journals.
Roger's friends and students - two groups that frequently overlapped - will remember fondly his passionate devotion to the life of the mind, his power as a teacher, and his mordant judgments that were aimed at holding us all to high intellectual and social standards. Roger was a generous host and we will always remember the Hornsby parties, given in the grand style, that enlivened the Iowa academic scene and produced so many new and lasting friendships.
In perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale.
Daily Newsletters