David Lee Closson

A memorial service for David will be held Saturday, February 1, 2025 from 2:00 PM to 3:00 PM at Baldwin Fairchild at Chapel Hill, 2420 Harrell Road, Orlando, FL 32817. The service will be live streamed on YouTube, please click on the following link: https://youtube.com/live/pLqHrNKrQkY?feature=share

David attended Westchester High School where he ran cross-country. Every summer his family went to Green Acre Baha’i School in Eliot, ME. As he grew older he continued to go to Green Acre to work as a staff member. He told fantastic stories about his experiences as a youth at Green Acre.

David graduated from Lincoln University where he pledged Omega Psi Phi fraternity. His line was the Roaring 19…yes it was the Roaring 20 but someone dropped off. He enjoyed LU immensely…it’s the only college he wanted to attend other than Oberlin.

He entered the Peace Corps in the second wave of participants where he taught at Sebei College, an all boys school on Mt. Sebei in Uganda, East Africa. It was a special assignment not to everyone’s taste as it was quite remote and rural but David loved it. He wrote to his parents upon the end of his service: “I miss all of you but I am having a beautiful time over here…I will [depart for the states] during the early morning so that I won’t let them [his students] see me crying. I will dearly miss all of them… .

Upon returning to the states he married Rosemary, had two children, Maisha and Tene while he worked at Swarthmore College and attended the University of Pennsylvania completing his Ph.D. in the Department of Folklore. The first African American male to do so. Now he has three grandsons: Bennett, Sebastian, and Quinn. He retired from Valencia College having held several positions with the State of Florida including Director of Folklife in White Springs, FL, and a faculty position at the University of Florida.

David had an enduring love for Africa and its many cultures so in 1993 he and Rosemary returned to Africa, this time to Nigeria where they both taught at the University of Maiduguri. David thrived in the extreme heat of this northern Nigerian town and he loved teaching African American literature to doctoral students.

He and Rosemary were fortunate to make two pilgrimages to the Baha’i Shrines in Haifa Israel where they were able to spend time in prayer and reflection on the blessings that they both felt they received.