Ralph Copeland Michelsen was born August 14, 1913, in Portland, Oregon, and died June 6, 1996, in Ashland, Oregon, of kidney failure. Having overcome significant childhood adversity, he educated himself and lived an extraordinarily varied, adventurous, and ultimately rewarding life. He regarded intellect, honesty, and integrity as preeminent values and these were the standards which he set for himself and others.

Although Ralph did not graduate from high school, he spent many hours of his youth in the public library reading widely and intensely. He once could name all the spars and lines of a full rigged 18th century sailing ship, and it was in the library that he began his lifelong interest in other cultures. He credited his failure to become a juvenile delinquent to his time spent in the library, and to his mother, and the librarian.

After “starving out” of both Fullerton Junior College and UCLA during the depression, Ralph began working in the construction industry and eventually became a general contractor. In his early adult years he became fluent in Spanish and was later hired to run a tungsten mine in northern Baja California during the Korean War. Eventually, his love of camping took him into rural Mexico and various Indian villages, where he began to make friends and learn about what he was seeing-an anthropologist in the making.

Ralph married Mildred Ecternacht shortly after he left UCLA and they had five children: Claire, Carolyn, Cleo, Cathy, and Ralph James. There is one grandchild from this family, Carolyn’s son Logan Bane. Ralph and his second wife, Mary-Kay Titus Michelsen, have one daughter, Joan-Marie.

Having ridden the second model Harley Davidson motorcycle as a youth living near the oil fields of Long Beach, California, Ralph continued his pursuit of adventure in adulthood by learning to fly his own airplane. In his later years, he spent many happy hours sailing and maintaining a wooden sail boat. From his forties until his death he and his wife owned a series of campers in which they traveled extensively throughout the Southwest, Mexico and Canada.

Camping with Mary-Kay in northern Mexico during the early 60’s Ralph became interested in the Pai Pai Indians of Santa Catarina, Baja California. A friendship developed there with Roger Owen, an anthropologist who was completing his field work with the Pai Pai for a PhD from UCLA. Owen soon began to urge Ralph to write about his observations. During these trips, Ralph, a life long photographer, was also recording photographically many of the activities he observed.

An encounter on the road in Baja California with a Kumeyaay Indian led Ralph to watch, then study, the hand game Peon. His frequent attendance at games and increasing friendship with one family of players led him not only to play once in a while, but to write a successful dissertation describing and analyzing the game. His dissertation supports the fact that Peon is a game of skill and strategy, not chance, as had been previously believed.

When Ralph was admitted to the School of Social Sciences, University of California, Irvine, he had already published numerous articles in cultural anthropology. He received his PhD degree in 1981 at the age of 68 and continued to teach at UCI until he was forced to retire because of his age. These were the happiest years of his long and interesting life.

After retirement he and his family moved to Oregon where he spent many hours building a G Gage rail road in his yard and admiring the cows in the front pasture. He was content and accepted his final illness without fear or apprehension.

[Written by Mary Kay Michelsen, 2006]