Philip Haring, 92, retired professor of political science
Philip Smyth Haring, a retired political science professor and Nantucket resident, died Sept. 27 of respiratory arrest at Nantucket Cottage Hospital. He was 92.
Mr. Haring was born in White Plains, N.Y., and graduated from Browne & Nichols School in Cambridge in 1933. He graduated from Harvard University in 1937 with a bachelor's degree in English.
He taught at Browne & Nichols (now Buckingham Browne & Nichols) for a year and then held short-term jobs, including serving as the assistant to the president of a hotel business and working in sales at Harvard Book Store.
Mr. Haring entered the Navy in 1940 and served for two years. He was stationed on the USS California, which was hit when Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor, said his son-in-law, Bob Haring-Smith of Washington, Pa.
He was one of the last men to escape the sinking ship, said his daughter, Tori Haring-Smith, president of Washington and Jefferson College in Washington, Pa.
After his time in the service, Mr. Haring returned to Boston and worked for five years at Employers' Liability Ltd. From 1948 to '51, he worked in the Boston University public relations department.
Then, Mr. Haring decided what he wanted to do with his life.
"He had an interest in teaching. He explored some other things, but he found his calling and went off to University of Chicago to study political science," said his son-in-law.
Mr. Haring graduated with a doctorate in political science and began working as a professor at Knox College in Galesburg, Ill., in 1954.
In 1952, he married the woman who would be his wife of 56 years, Jacqueline Kolle Adams. His first marriage, to Ellen Newton Stone, ended in divorce.
At Knox, he taught political theory. His daughter described him as a professor who defied convention and always asked questions, a habit that found its way to family mealtimes. "Dinner table conversation was a little different than at most houses," she said. She said he would ask rhetorical questions and then look for debate: "The United Nations is inhibiting rather than promoting world peace. Argue," she quoted as an example.
During the 1960s, Mr. Haring mentored many men who were contemplating military service and helped them grasp the complexity of war, said his daughter.
She said he kept hundreds of letters from students thanking him for teaching them and making a difference in their lives.
"I have you to thank for freeing my mind from the many clichés which can restrain one's mind from examining a new way of thinking, with wonder rather than with prejudice. In my own way, I'll probably be thanking you for the rest of my life," read a 1969 letter from student Kim Adams Post.
In 1980, he retired from Knox College and moved to Nantucket.
Mr. Haring loved antiques. Spending summers with his family in Chatham before permanently moving to Nantucket, they would buy antiques in the Midwest that were not popular sellers and bring them to the Northeast. They would sell them to antique dealers and then do the reverse, taking East Coast antiques to Illinois.
His daughter said she remembers "being tucked into the car next to the antiques."
He also loved to read and travel. With his wife, he visited every continent except Antarctica. Favorite destinations included China and Japan; he would collect the work of the local artists. Later in life, he began drawing and creating his own art.
In addition to his wife and daughter, he leaves a grandson.
Services have been held. 