Professor’s life spent next door to the limelight
In a tidy office on the second floor of Old Main, near the Museum of Anthropology, sits anthropologist Richley Crapo.
“My life is more interesting for the people I’ve known than what I’ve done,” Crapo said.
Crapo was born on an April day in a small southern California town known as La Habra. Leonard, Crapo’s father, was the mayor of the town for many years. Crapo’s mother, Ardys, was a childhood playmate of Richard Nixon.
“She liked him,” Crapo said. “She lived across the street from his aunt’s house on Whittier Boulevard and he’d come to visit and they’d swing in the walnut trees, which have really flexible limbs.”
Growing up in Orange County, Crapo describes himself as “sort of a nerd.” He decided he wanted to be a teacher in seventh grade and was the top math and science scholar in his high school.
“I was probably never seen without a book in my hand,” Crapo said. In high school, he and a group of friends built a 12-inch reflecting telescope. When it was completed, it was the second-largest privately owned telescope in California.
Crapo entered Brigham Young University as a math major, but switched to German after serving an LDS mission in northern Germany. After concluding his German major at Cal State-Fullerton, a single anthropology elective sealed his fate. Crapo registered in a North American Indians course and was immediately hooked.
“I decided I liked anthropology a lot better than teaching pattern drills every day for the rest of my life,” Crapo said.
After his mission, Crapo married his first wife, a cousin to the crown prince of Holland. She was, according to Crapo’s website, “something of an Isadora Duncan type, rather a free spirit.” Her mother was a spy for the Germans in World War II and was the first woman to fly a glider plane in Germany.
Crapo quickly completed a second major in anthropology with a minor in ancient history and the newlyweds moved to Salt Lake City. Crapo said he enrolled in graduate school on scholarship at the University of Utah where archaeologist Jesse Jennings was located. Crapo said Jennings was the best archaeologist in the country.
Crapo earned his doctorate with field work on a Shoshone reservation in Nevada. Especially interested in linguistics, he studied the tribe’s use of Shoshone and English. He later published a dictionary of the Shoshone language. He said he has written a total of five books on various anthropological subjects. One, an Aztec history he wrote with fellow USU anthropology professor Bonnie Glass-Coffin, comprised texts that had never been translated prior to their efforts.
Then, Crapo said, he became interested in sexual orientation and sexual customs around the world.
He said he has published articles on the social and cultural characteristics of homosexuality and gave a lecture on campus 20 years ago detailing what was known of the topic at the time. His studies have included how gay and lesbian Mormons deal with the conflict between their sexual orientation and their spirituality.
Outside of anthropology, Crapo’s life consists of independent research on ancient Judaism, contributing to Internet discussion groups, family and World of Warcraft.
“I got to level 70 before my son did,” Crapo said. He has been playing since the maximum achievement was level 70 and now maintains the status of a level 80 Shaman.
Crapo said he enjoys ancestral genealogy and has gathered over 20,000 names. He fancies reading murder mysteries by Michael Connelly and science fiction by Richard Zelazny. He watches Vin Diesel movies. He pays for his gasoline and food by means of his gold prospecting hobby; digging in gravel and panning for gold in riverbeds in Montana.
“It’s better than fishermen do,” Crapo said.
Crapo took his first job offer at USU 40 years ago and is still going strong.
“I particularly like teaching,” he said.
– noelle.johansen@aggiemail.usu.edu