In Memoriam

Richard Joseph Preston III, of Ancaster, Ontario, passed away on January 7, 2025, at the age of 93.  He was encircled by his family in a loving ceremony. 

He is predeceased by his first wife and partner of over 37 years, Sarah Jane Capps (1933-1991), and survived by their five children (Sarah, Alice, Susan (David), Richard IV, and Jennifer), his second wife and partner of over 32 years, Elizabeth (Betty) Jean Cutler (1945- ), two step children (Dan (Heather) and Tim (Lucie) Cross), and numerous grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Dick was born to Richard Joseph Preston Jr. and Alice Elizabeth MacDuff Preston in 1931. His father was a forester who became Dean of the School of Forestry at North Carolina State University. His mother and stepmother (Bernice “B” Boynton Preston) were both advocates of child development, about which his stepmother completed a Doctoral Degree in 1936 when very few women entered higher academia.

During his own early university studies Dick found himself drawn to the field of Anthropology, ultimately completing a Doctoral Degree at the University of North Carolina. There he met and married Sarah Jane Capps in 1953, and together over the next 37 years they raised a family while building life-long relationships among the James Bay Cree people that were profoundly formative to the people they both became. Dick learned from and worked closely with and for Cree elders, community leaders, and youth for over 60 years, and was eventually honoured with the name Preston ’She’yuu (Preston Elder). His research and the deep insights he gained were instrumental in supporting the Crees’ case in the events culminating in the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement, the first modern Indigenous treaty in Canada. He provided wise counsel to the Cree during the Nemaska Consult on village relocation, and actively participated in the Cree Way Project that developed and introduced Cree language and cultural knowledge into the modern school curriculum.

In 1971 Dick accepted a faculty position in the new Department of Anthropology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario where he taught and researched until being granted the title of Professor Emeritus upon mandatory retirement at age 65. He was a deep thinker and natural intellectual, and his rich collaborations with Cree and other colleagues continued until his death. His major publication was a monograph based on his dissertation, with a second edition published in 2002 as “Cree Narrative: Expressing the Personal Meaning of Events” (McGill-Queens University Press). Most recently he collaborated on the production of the social history volume, “People of the Moose River Basin (2021, Moose Cree First Nation). Among the honours he received were the Weaver-Tremblay award for exceptional contributions to Canadian applied anthropology (2006), induction as a founding member of the Canadian Anthropology Society (2014), and publication by his peers of a book in his honour entitled “Together We Survive: Ethnographic Intuitions, Friendships, and Conversations” (2016, McGill-Queens University Press).

Dick is widely respected as a kind, thoughtful, wise, compassionate, and humble person. These are qualities that he observed and respected among the Cree, and that found a sympathetic spiritual home among the Quakers. Dick followed his first wife into spiritual practice with Quakers in 1971, and has been active with the Hamilton Meeting ever since.

At the age of 61, after Sarah’s death, Dick married Betty, also a Quaker. Their special bond lasted until his death at 93. With more leisure time, together Dick and Betty shared in his life-long appreciation of the arts, literature, music and theatre, and they enjoyed travelling for work and pleasure. Over the years they took great joy in watching their many grandchildren and great grandchildren grow. One of his favourite places was the Quaker Camp NeeKaunis, on Georgian Bay, where he found peace in service among Friends and Nature, and reflected on what a culture of peace within broader society could be.

Dick’s Quaker practice led to his role as past and founding chair of the Canadian Department of Peace Initiative - Hamilton Branch, and activities aimed at peace-building locally in Hamilton through the group Culture of Peace, for which he was named Hamilton’s World Citizen of the Year for 2011. He served as a Board member of the United Nations Association in Canada, Hamilton Branch, where he sponsored the Social Geography Project.

He was a husband, brother, father, grandfather, great grandfather, friend, teacher and mentor, Quaker, peace activist, a lover of music, and an elder to many. His deep rich voice and ability to express ideas vividly made for exceptional story-telling. He described himself as a man of stories and he loved teaching and learned so much from his students.

Dick Preston’s journey from this life was blessed by the gift of a new pair of moccasins in keeping with Cree tradition, delivered on Christmas Day, which he wore as he passed. His family is eternally grateful to the generosity of the Cree people for their gifts of friendship and teaching. He even adopted subtle aspects of the Cree sense of humour, as he passed calling out to us all, “Bye!”

He deeply loved his family, and he took pride in celebrating and honouring each person’s uniqueness and achievements. His was a life well lived, and he will be greatly missed by all.

A memorial service will be held on Saturday, February 15 at 2pm Eastern time, in the Quaker Meeting House in Hamilton, Ontario. The service can also be joined via Zoom for those who are unable to attend in person, which can be accessed at this link: 

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81093200021?pwd=V0QzSCs3UEozODFia2RwdFFrZ1NlUT09

Charitable donations can be made to the Canadian Friends Service Committee at https://quakerservice.ca/about/donate/  or to Camp NeeKaunis at

https://www.neekaunis.org/donations. Please be sure to indicate that your donation is in memory of Dick Preston.

A longer biography, and full bibliography of his scholarly works, is available at https://www.richardpreston.ca/.