I just found an old message to me from Hal:

"Life is the worst. Long story. Tell you when we have time. For now, I'm out
of circulation. Think Florida. Think hospitals. Think jails. Think
courts-martial. Try not to think. Love, Hal."

He never did tell me about it and we had time back then- and lots of beer.

I miss you, friend.
Love, len

I was lucky enough to take many classes at MSU with Professor Walsh. We shared many a long talk and he even took time to meet my family at graduation. Over the years I visited his classes as often as possible and was always welcomed and included in the discussions and occassionally coffee or lunch after. We has been very influential in my life since then and will be greatly missed.

I miss Hal! I met him at our family's cafe in Old Mesilla, NM. He would come almost every day for a cup of black coffee and stay for hours. I loved it. I was an undergrad student with goals of going to law school and he inspired me more than any of my university professors. I ended up going to law school at Notre Dame and unfortunately lost touch with him. I wish I had looked for him before he left Las Cruces. I was going through a box of mementos and found a few typed letters from him that really made me laugh. He had such a way with words. I am sure he is in a better place right now, and feeling finer than a frog's hair.

I was lucky enough to take a 100 level Philosophy class with Dr. Walsh in Fall 1989. He is easily one of the most memorable professors that I had at MSU. A fascinating person. Thank you Dr. Walsh. 

I took several graduate classes with Hal and was fortunate to be the graduate assistant in one of his undergraduate Ancient Philosophy courses. We had many discussions, primarily about Aristotle, while I was his assistant. Hal was also on my MA committee. Hal was unlike any of the other philosophers I had known while at MSU — and I mean that in a good way. He was a tremendous scholar, but his humanity impressed more than anything. I feel bad that I lost touch with him.

Fortunate, indeed, was I to have met Professor Harold Walsh (“Hal,” much later on) at a stunning public lecture he gave on the military industrial complex at Michigan State University in the autumn of 1966.

He spoke that day with searing authority of the financial profiteering of war (perhaps echoing President Eisenhower) . Dr. Walsh also spoke about the complexities of winning peace, completely captivating a mixed audience of about 150 students.

This, during the raging Viet Nam War of which he was critical yet also constructive in his moderate tone — asking us “to just follow the money.” He was no pacifist. In fact, he had been a very young WW II intelligence officer — undermining the Nazis in Germany and elsewhere —something I only learned of years later.

A man of extraordinary intellectual gifts (physics, philosophy, languages, poetry), a man with a flair for the dramatic turn of phrase, Hal was also disarmingly warm and open when you got to know him.

The very next semester after this encounter, I changed my major from Pre-Law to Philosophy — and never looked back.

Hal later wrote supportive letters to my east coast graduate schools at Penn, and next Temple. He was a most inspiring academic advisor at MSU, never letting me down, always inspiring, encouraging, — and better, helping me laugh at life’s foibles. 

I took four courses from him, including Philosophy of Law, Aristotle, Social and Political Philosophy. He never talked down to his students. He brought us up to the next level and beyond. He made us believe in ourselves even when we had failings or fears thereof.

Hal and I were often geographically distant. Yet magically we remained life-long friends — trading theories of philosophy, the declining Academy, sometimes family-related sorrows, but also unexpected joys. 

My wife and I last visited with Dr. Walsh briefly at his home in Las Cruces, NM, during the winter of 2015. He was as wiry, spirited, and witty as ever. We went out to breakfast and rarely looked back. The future was too exciting!

To his family and friends — after such a long, vital, and adventuresome life — our sincerest condolences on the personal loss of this truly talented Philosophy Professor, sometime confidant, raconteur, and WW II Veteran.

We won’t see his kind any time soon. Thank you, Dr. Walsh, for sharing your gifts of friendship, your wisdom, your sense of humor, your indomitable spirit.

Paul J. Carrick, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus of Philosophy
Gettysburg College
Harrisburg Area Community College

My first class in graduate school at Michigan State, in 1979, was with Hal, on Aristotle. He walked into the classroom, sat on the desk in front, folded his legs under himself, lit a cigarette, and pronounced, "Aristotle was the greatest thinker in the history of western civilization." His tone and manner made it seem to be the most important truth in the world. Later that term, after a class, I ran after him down the hallway of Berkey Hall (Hal never stayed after class and he NEVER held office hours). I asked him a question about Aristotle on knowledge of individuals. He paused, looked at me, and asked, "What's your name?" It's hard to convey how much that meant to me. He conducted every class without notes: it was all in his head.

I had so many long conversations with him, especially at his home on Kensington Rd, although it was not the same after Carol passed away. I learned from him what it means to be thoughtful, and I'm proud that my dissertation was the last one that he supervised. And I'm especially fond that I met my wife in his class on Aristotle's "Ethics".

He had so many funny stories about his time as a student at University of Michigan and his time as an intelligence officer. He had an amazing knack for accents--you'd easily think he was a native Dubliner or Berliner. He was meant to write an important work on the subject of collective action, but he never did. Perhaps he left some notes somewhere.

Years after I graduated I met Joel Feinberg, a distinguished professor in the Philosophy of Law from the University of Arizona, who had gone to grad school with Hal. I mentioned I was Hal's student and he told me that on one occasion the graduate students learned that Hal knew little about baseball. They were thrilled--they had found a subject Hal did not know.

He was proud of his nephew Joe, lead guitar player for the Eagles. He told me with a huge grin on his face that Ringo Starr had chosen Joe to play with him on some tour. Needless to say, the Eagles were not Hal's taste in music, but that did not matter.

Hal was fond of saying after someone important to him passed away that the light had gone out of the world. It feels that way now. At some point, he gave me his own copy of his doctoral dissertation on William Whewell. There is some solace in holding it now . . . but only some.

My Friend, Hal.

You brought such brilliant intellect and wicked humor to our many, many "library" hours. Your wit, wisdom, laughter, and friendship lightened any room and brought with it intellectual depth, warmth, and validation.

You were a terrible driver who I likened to Mr. Toad, and that made you laugh deeply heartily.

I miss you, my friend.

Elena

Harold T. Walsh has passed away.

I happened to be finishing the novel, Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather, about the time Hal slipped away. In the story, the Archbishop looked to those in his household as if he were sleeping. But, really, he was fondly remembering times from his youth and young adulthood. I was hoping that Hal was doing the same.

Hal was the kindest and best of men.

He was a philosopher, a teacher, a chemist and physicist, a silver smith, a poet, a classicist and a chef, and he was all those things to me personally. The first time I spoke with him was in the hallway of Morrill Hall at MSU. I had a question about his class, and he saw that I was studying Greek. He was delighted. We talked for a few hours that afternoon, and we spent the next 40 years intermittently in long conversations about everything under the sun. He talked me through broken romances, shitty job situations, and life choices. He even wrote me a poem once, too. When I stayed at his place for a few days years ago, he made luscious dinners every night. Later, he sent me two tins of fudge. In one tin was a piece of paper with the symbol for a man, and in the other the symbol for a woman. It took me a moment to realize that the fudge in one tin had nuts and the other tin didn't.

I have been grateful since I met him that he outlived any reasonable prediction of his life span. He had physical ailments all his life and smoked for 50 years or so, which shot his lungs. He grew up poor in Chicago, the youngest of three during the Depression, served in Germany at the end of the war eating little, which ruined his teeth. He was 6 feet 2 inches tall and never weighed more than 130 pounds. He and his wife, Carol, had planned for her to be taken care of, but in a cruel twist, she died in her 50's of cancer. He was crushed, but bore her loss stoically and returned to his typically self-contained self.

It was Hal I called in my darkest moments, both because I knew he would help and that doing so wouldn't burden him. Once, in my 20's, the future looked to me like a long, dark tunnel of suffering that never ended. When Hal answered my phone call, I asked him why people go on living. After two hours, he had me laughing and looking forward to spring semester.

Hal met my parents one summer. They thoroughly enjoyed him. He supplied some of the lilacs from his garden for my sister's wedding, and he knew and loved my brother.

Hal loved me, too. Most importantly for me, though, he believed in me. He never had an unkind or impatient word and thought I could tackle any challenge or solve any problem. He was my faithful and unrelenting cheerleader. I often felt an imposter when he sang my praises, but his confidence in me helped shore up my own and made me want to be the person he thought I was. What a gift he was!

I am ever so grateful to him for his undying kindness and friendship, and even though I'm all grown up, I'm having a hard time imagining life without his ready support. I loved him more than I can express and miss him something terrible.

I know at some level I'm sad but I cannot think of him without smiling. I still quote him on a regular basis, even sometimes being decent enough to properly cite him. He was impossible to describe to folks so that they would believe you. People always think I'm exaggerating or making stuff up. He helped me believe in myself as a philosopher and to never settle for the easy answers, both the marks of a great teacher. I have to stop because otherwise I'll go on for hours. My love goes out to him and all his in the world

Harold Walsh was so many things to so many people, it is difficult to do justice to his life in a single memorial. This site, therefore, invites those who knew him to contribute their memories, photos and stories, in order to create a fuller picture of his remarkable and unforgettable 94 years. 

He went by many names during his inestimable and distinguished life: Lieutenant Walsh, Dr. Walsh, Hal, Brother, Father, Grandfather, Uncle, and to his oldest friends and family, Veen. 

He was a scholar, teacher, World War II officer, scientist, engineer, philosopher, professor, civil rights advocate, counselor, confidante, "praise singer", craftsman, family man, friend, and so very much more.

Above all he was respected, widely consulted, and much loved. 

Please leave your photos, thoughts and memories for others to help appreciate the well-lived life of Harold Trueman Walsh.