John Ernest Alexander Crake

202 OBITUARY JOHN ERNEST ALEXANDER CRAKE "Ernie" Crake was born in Toronto in 1912 into a milieu of comfort, culture and the Classics. It was almost foreordained that he should be graduated from Trinity College with Honours in Classics and that he should proceed to a second B.A. and the M.A. at St. John's College, Oxford. In 1939 he also received the doctorate from The John Hopkins University, but after a lecturership at Dartmouth College and a period a Master at Trinity College School, he interrupted his career to enter the Canadian Intelligence Corps in World War II. In his pre-war years, Ernest had published his work on the pontifical annals, which remains a major contribution to Roman Republican history. Nearly a quarter-century later, at the Philadelphia meetings of F.I.E.C., some of us from the Maritimes were in a breakfast-line together when the tall visitor immediately behind us spied Ernest's name tag. "Ah, Professor Crake!" he burst forth, "I have wanted for so many years to meet you and to tell you how important you r work has been to me. I am Emi Iio Gabba. II At the war's end, in 1946, Ernest was hired as an assistant professor at Mount Allison University, where, in the following year, he was suddenly catapulted into the Wood Professorship and Headship of the Department of Classics, both of which he held until his retirement in 1975. For nearly thirty years he was at the center of Mount Allison's life, and it of his. He was for many years Secretary of the University Senate and a member of its Board of Regents. He also brought distinction to the University by his service to the editorial board of Phoenix and his many scholarly book reviews for that journal from 1947 to 1971; by his membership in the governing body of the Humanities Research Council and on its publication committee; and, most particularly, by his election as President of the Classical Association of Canada, 1966-68. In recognition of his long end distinguished service, in 1981 Mount Allison conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Literature, honoris causa; unfortunately, his failing health compellE:d him to receive this signal honour in abse.'}~. OBITUARY 203 Not long before his scheduled retirement, Ernest suddenly fell seriously ill and was never again to regain his health. In his retirement, however, he established the Crake Institute to advance the Classics and his University. The Institute has provided the Crake Lectures, for which Mount Allison invites distinguished speakers on classical subjects; an annual undergraduate scholarship; the Crake Doctoral Fellowship in Classics, open to a nation-wide competition; a faculty research fund in the Humanities; and the J. E.A. Crake Reading Room for Classics. Ernest was released from a long decline on June 11, 1983. His friends will not forget his ready wit and infectious laugh, nor his superb teaching and scholarship. One of his former colleagues puts it well: "Ernie did not talk much about excellence; he did not have to, for he was walking proof of what it is. II M.E.M. ...