Weinberg Prof. Emeritus Donald T. Torchiana, a dedicated teacher and Irish literature expert, died of natural causes Wednesday in a Wilton, Conn., nursing home. He was 77.
Torchiana, or “Torch,” as he was known on campus, was an English professor at NU from 1953 until he retired in 1989. His daughter, Katherine Grenier, said he spent so much of his day teaching and spending time with his family that he could find time to write only late at night or early in the morning.
“I have this memory of going to sleep to him typing and waking up to him typing,” she said. “It’s kind of like rain on the roof; it’s really nice.”
Grenier said her father enjoyed planning large parties, including an annual summer champagne and strawberries party for which he would invite neighbors, NU faculty and students to his house on Hinman Avenue.
Torchiana’s expertise in Irish literature, especially on the works of James Joyce and W.B. Yeats, led him to travel with his family Ireland throughout the 1960s.
Torchiana earned his Ph.D in English language and literature from the University of Iowa in 1953. His academic focus also influenced his family.
“We weren’t allowed to have television – we were one of the few families growing up in the ’60s without a TV,” said son William Torchiana. “We were taught to focus on books and reading.”
Grenier said her father always would offer support when his children just wanted to read.
“Most parents push their children out the door, but he always said, ‘If you want to sit around on the living room floor and read Dostoevsky, that’s fine with me,'” Grenier said. “It makes you braver about going out and doing what you want when you know you have someplace to go back to.”
English Prof. Emeritus Alfred Appel said Torchiana had a firm belief that the beauty of the texts he read was more powerful than anyone’s opinion of them.
“He believed that the literary text came first, and that theory and analysis was a distant second to the importance of the text and the great writers,” Appel said.
Grenier said her father’s love for the purity of literature almost got him in trouble at a performance of Tennessee Williams’ “Summer and Smoke” about 25 years ago. She said the performance was so bad her father started heckling the cast and was almost thrown out of the theater.
“I’d never been thrown out of anywhere, yet there I was in my 20s, and he was in his 50s, this respectable English professor, and he started answering the actors’ lines back to them,” she said.
Before entering academia, Torchiana was a decorated Air Force pilot in World War II.
“His solid teaching over the years was what strengthened the department,” Appel said. “He took care of business, and he was serious about his dedication to literature.”
Torchiana is survived by his three children; eight grandchildren; a brother, Jack, of Tucson, Ariz.; and his former wife, Margarida LaSueur of Nahant, Mass.
A memorial service for Torchiana will be held at 3 p.m. on June 2 in Alice Millar Chapel.
