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Philip Fetzer

February 21, 2025.

Born in 1943 in Pasadena, California, Philip Lee Fetzer was raised in a large family after his mother passed away at a young age. He was profoundly impacted by his education in the Episcopal Church of Los Angeles—and earned a Carver Award for Christian and moral leadership in 1961.

That year, Philip began studying history at Princeton, where he later met his wife, Elizabeth “Betty” Deininger, who worked in the job placement office there. They married in 1967, and even in his later years when his health declined, Philip would often speak of his love for her.

Philip came of age during the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, and Watergate. He was fearless during the Freedom Summer of 1964 in Mississippi, where he registered Black Americans to vote, and later he began teaching public school in inner Los Angeles.

After a stint in the Peace Corps, Philip moved to a small suburb of Sacramento, California, where he taught history and government until 1988. He won the respect of his colleagues as he fought for the just treatment of teachers as president of his teachers’ union.

While teaching public school, Philip spent summers finishing his dissertation in political science in 1981 at the University of Oregon, having completed his master of arts in teaching at Reed. He then taught at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, where his values sometimes put him at odds with a conservative campus full of engineers, architects, and farmers.

Philip retired to Cape Cod in 2005 with Betty. He suffered a heart attack in 2009 and was cared for by Betty until 2010, when she passed away. Matt, their son, moved in to care for his father, building a relationship founded in their shared passion for teaching, memories of tossing the football until dusk, and seeing Star Wars films together.

Philip is survived by Matt, who says he was profoundly shaped by his father: “He gave me a righteous core and a love of books and culture and learning, and did so with an easygoing wit and always a twinkle.”

Appeared in Reed magazine: Winter 2025

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