Longtime Gustavus Adolphus College
Classics Professor Dies
ST. PETER, Minn. (June 25, 2001) – Marleen Boudreau Flory died Friday, June 22, 2001 at the hospice of Immanuel St. Joseph's Hospital in Mankato, Minn. She had suffered for two months from metastatic cancer. She was Professor of Classics at Gustavus Adolphus College, where she had taught since 1978. She was an award-winning teacher and a classical scholar of international reputation. Her specialty was Roman social history.
A memorial service will be held at 4 p.m. Saturday, June 30 at the Episcopal Church of the Holy Communion in St. Peter.
Professor Flory grew up in New Britain, Conn., the daughter of Irvin G. Boudreau and Kathleen Ebbitt Boudreau. At New Britain High School she studied Latin for four years with the poet Constance Carrier. She attended Mount Holyoke College as a Mary Lyon Scholar, was a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and graduated magna cum laude in 1965.
She received her Ph.D. from Yale University in 1975 and wrote her dissertation with Ramsay Macmullen. She started her teaching career at Mount Holyoke, where she was also Assistant Academic Dean. She then taught briefly at Salem College in North Carolina before coming to Gustavus.
At Gustavus she won the Outstanding Scholar award in 1989 and the Edgar M. Carlson Award for Distinguished Teaching in 1991. She was instrumental in the founding of the thriving Classics program at Gustavus. She inaugurated and edited the popular Classics Newsletter, which allows Gustavus Classics graduates to learn current news of the department and also current news of other graduates around the world.
Professor Flory was a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome, where she was Mellon Fellow in Classics 1985-1986. She lived for extended periods in Rome and Athens, where she was frequently a Senior Associate Member of the American School of Classical Studies in Athens.
She published numerous, widely cited articles in learned journals in the U.S. and in Germany, including the American Journal of Ancient History, Historia, and Hermes. She was a frequent book reviewer and also wrote articles on pedagogy and travel for the popular press. She served on the editorial boards of the Classical Journal and of Wayne State University Press and was on the Executive Board of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South. She served as a Consultant-Evaluator for the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools.
Her survivors include her husband, Stewart Gilman Flory, also a professor of Classics at Gustavus, two sisters. Maureen Dwyer of Waterbury, Conn., and Michelle Madison of Farmington, Conn., two nieces, and a nephew.
In lieu of flowers donations may be made to Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA 01075 or to the American School of Classical Studies, 6-8 Charlton Street, Princeton, NJ 08540-52326.
Arrangements are being made by St. Peter Funeral Service.