Dr. Kempton Evans Webb, PhD, died on Sunday, October 13, 2024. He was 92 years old and led a full and happy life, married for 68 years and reunited with his beloved, the late Dr. Nancy Boyd Webb, DSW. Theirs was a Harvard/Radcliffe marriage; they met at a Harvard Glee Club/Radcliffe Choral Society rehearsal of the Boston Symphony’s Romeo and Juliet by Hector Berlioz, conducted by Charles Munch. After pursuing fruitful academic careers at Columbia University and Fordham University, respectively, they retired to coastal Massachusetts for 20 years after moving from the greater New York City area.
Kempton was raised in Malden, Mass., son of the late Margaret and Winthrop Webb. He earned his bachelor’s in geology from Harvard College and master’s and PhD degrees in geography from Syracuse University.
Dr. Webb’s passion for education was infectious, always inspiring people to pursue higher education, and he was a powerful storyteller who could transport any listener around the globe. He was professor emeritus at Columbia University, where he served for 28 years as chairman of the geography department and as director of the Institute of Latin American Studies. Prior to his academic career, he was a research analyst staff sergeant in the U.S. Army Reserve with the 454th Strategic Intelligence Unit, where he served at the Pentagon for several summers while at Syracuse University. Summers in college took him to Alaska as a gold miner, Greenland working for the weather bureau and to Peru as a mining geologist.
Dr. Webb developed a love of sailing that started with a Sunfish and moved up to an 80-foot schooner, the Richard Robbins, on Lake Champlain in Vermont. The business was short-lived, but the age of commercial sail was reintroduced to Lake Champlain. He was a talented sailor and paired this with his vast academic knowledge to navigate numerous waters in various vessels.
His many roles in life included professor, author, keynote speaker, television host, consultant, husband, father, brother, uncle, grandfather and friend. He was a world traveler and an expert on Brazil and Latin America. He wrote and cowrote several books about that region of the world and was fluent in Portuguese, Spanish and French. He specialized in research on Brazilian droughts and floods and the economic geography of the food supply of Belo Horizonte and Fortaleza Ceara. His books were published in the U.S. and also in Brazil. He traveled to Alaska, Greenland, Mexico, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa and all over the U.S. He read the New York Times daily and discussed world events in depth. Dr. Webb had a greeting he utilized when meeting someone new: “Kempton’s the name and geography is my game.” He was especially revered, among his family and close friends, for his whimsical and unique sense of humor.
Kempton’s family was the center of his life. He is reunited with his wife, Nancy, who predeceased him in early 2023; his sister, Martha Crommett Willett, who predeceased him later in 2023; and his lifelong friend (since kindergarten), John Bowman, who also passed in 2023. Kempton is survived by his daughter, Rachel Webb, and husband William Scott of Newburyport, Mass.; son, Scott Webb, and wife Rosemary Webb of Hinesburg, Vt.; four grandchildren, Katherine Scott and fiancé Avery Rossow, Jennifer Scott, and Sophia and Preston Webb; four nephews, David Crommett, Peter Crommett, Stephen Crommett and Christopher Crommett; sister-in-law, Barbara Fedele; and two nieces, Angie Fedele and Oriana Fedele. In addition to his family, Kempton will be remembered by his many professional colleagues and hundreds of students whom he taught during his tenure at Columbia University.
The celebration of life and burial service will be private.
This article appears in Dec 25, 2024 – Jan 7, 2025.