Craig R. Humphrey, described by his family as a “professor, sailor, and family man,” died at home in East Hampton on July 31. His wife, Cathy, was with him. He was 82 and had been diagnosed with cancer earlier this year.
Mr. Humphrey graduated from Bowling Green State University in Ohio and received his master’s and doctorate degrees in sociology from Brown University in Providence, R.I. He went on to teach sociology courses about urban growth, world population, and environmental sociology at the College of William and Mary in Virginia and at Penn State University. He spent several semesters as a visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin and the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
He wrote many papers and books, most notably “Environment, Energy, and Society,” published in 1982. Active in professional associations throughout his career, he led the environmental sociology section of the American Sociological Association, which recognized him with its Distinguished Service Award in 2003 “for his scholarship, teaching, and service,” his family wrote.
Mr. Humphrey was born in Grand Rapids, Mich., on Oct. 14, 1942, to Roger Humphrey and the former Ruth Reed, and grew up there. He and his future wife, Catherine Clark, met at Brown, where they were both students. Their first date was a trip to Narragansett Bay and a sail on his first boat, a wooden Lightning.
They were married on Aug. 6, 1966, and had two daughters.
Mr. Humphrey enjoyed owning, maintaining, and sailing wooden boats throughout his life, taking pride in painting the hulls and varnishing the brightwork. “Sailing trips became a family tradition, enjoyed by all,” his family said.
After retiring from Penn State, Mr. Humphrey was active in local government in State College, Pa., winning a position on the borough council. He and his wife moved to East Hampton in 2008 when they inherited her parents’ 100-year-old house on Pantigo Road, called the Clark House. There he “took pride in having painted every room in the house and enjoyed keeping the yard in pristine shape, planting flowering shrubs and spring bulbs wherever there was space and sunshine.”
He was appointed to the East Hampton Village Planning Board and to the village’s zoning board of appeals.
After attending a program at the East Hampton Library in 2010, he became interested in exploring his family’s genealogy and was able to trace his roots back to a captain who fought in the American Revolution. That revelation led to his membership in the Sons of the American Revolution, and he was active in the Long Island chapter and served as its historian for a number of years.
In addition to his wife of 59 years, he is survived by two daughters: Michelle Nixon and her husband, Andrew, of Ridgefield, Conn., and Gwen Neifert and her husband, Jason, of West End, N.C. He also leaves three grandchildren, Nathaniel and Adele Nixon and Hunter Neifert. “Interacting with his grandchildren gave Craig great pleasure, as did family gatherings,” his family said.
Mr. Humphrey was cremated and his ashes interred at Cedar Lawn Cemetery in East Hampton. Memorial contributions in his name have been suggested to East End Hospice, P.O. Box 1048, Westhampton Beach 11978.
