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George Roth died on December 11, 2023, from a rare disease, CIPD, which is similar to ALS.
George, who had one older brother, was born in 1940 in the Bronx. In 1947, the family moved to Tucson, AZ. Tucson was a very small town at the time, but he enjoyed living in the desert. After graduating from high school in 1958, he enrolled at Reed College because of a high school science teacher he much admired. He majored in anthropology at Reed, and greatly enjoyed madrigal and other singing. After graduation, he went to the University of Chicago, where he earned an MA and met his future wife, Jane Ganford.
After a few years of junior college teaching, he enrolled in the anthropology PhD program at Northwestern University. He returned to Arizona to do his dissertation research on the Colorado River Indian Reservation and wrote his dissertation on the Chemehuevi Tribe, receiving his PhD in 1976. After several years of teaching at California State University, San Bernardino, he was offered a chance to work on the newly established Federal Acknowledgement Project at the Bureau of Indian Affairs in Washington, DC. He loved the job and his colleagues and spent the rest of his practicing anthropology career there, retiring in 2011. He was an active member of the Washington Association of Professional Anthropologists (WAPA).
George and Jane returned to Chicago in 2012, living in a senior retirement community for the rest of his life. He went back to singing after retirement, taking private lessons and singing in chorales, continuing to love Renaissance music. He was a devoted family man who remained in contact with good friends from all stages of his life, who will miss him greatly. He is survived by his wife, Jane Roth, a retired social worker; two daughters; and three grandchildren.
(Jane Roth and Suzanne Hanchett)