Norwich, VT – James Tatum of Norwich, Vermont died peacefully on February 6, 2026 at Kendal at Hanover, with his husband, Bill Noble by his side. He was 83.
Born in Longview, Texas in 1942, he was raised to value family, music and literature. He attended Weatherford College, received a B.A. in English from the University of Texas, Austin (1963) and a Ph.D. in Classics from Princeton University in 1969. He began a distinguished forty-year teaching career at Dartmouth College in 1969 and was the Aaron Lawrence Professor of Classics Emeritus at his death.
Jim lived life large. He was an exuberant performer in the classroom, caring of friends, family and students, wickedly funny, generous and always plotting the next adventure.
In his scholarship and in his curricular innovations, he pursued wide ranging paths: his translations of Plautus were performed by students and faculty at the Hopkins Center; he was instrumental in developing the interdisciplinary Humanities program at Dartmouth; he brought together academics from around the world to Hanover in 1989 for the International Conference on the Ancient Novel II; and his co-teaching with William W. Cook led to their book African American Writers and Classical Tradition. His most groundbreaking book is The Mourner’s Song: War and Remembrance from the ‘Iliad’ to Vietnam.
As a member of the Classics department, and chair from 1979-1985 and 2006-2007, he participated in the integration of women scholars into the department; in 1979 he received the Huntington Award for Excellence in Teaching at Dartmouth. He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1985-86; and held residencies at the Rockefeller Foundation Study and Conference Center in Bellagio, and was Fellow at the Ligurian Study Center in Bogliasco, Italy. He had visiting appointments at Johns Hopkins University, University of Michigan, Princeton University and Drew University.
For Jim, performance was not confined to the classroom. His Steinway B grand at home had to be rebuilt from his forceful approach to the keyboard. He was a frequent performer in the Vaughan Recital Series, most recently with “Too Much D Major?” in 2019. He and Bill Cook were known for their performance of “Black Talk, Black Tunes”, which combined the elegant syncopation of Scott Joplin with the rhyming meter of Harlem Renaissance poets.
Jim made and kept many friendships. His address book was full of friends made at Princeton and a year at the Asheville School. He counted a wide circle of friends in Texas as “cousins” and returned frequently to care for those succumbing to AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s and for the older generation that had educated him in music and the arts. Those visits also meant returning home with bags of Pendery’s chilies. His copies of Julia Child and Marcella Hazan were stained from frequent reference and improvisation in the kitchen.
He was the son of Emma Jean (Harvey) and James Hilton Tatum; and was also pre-deceased by his uncle, Jack Harvey and grandmother Frankie Harvey, who raised him in Jefferson, and later Weatherford, Texas. He is survived by his brother Randy Tatum (wife Suzy Hillard) of Minneapolis, and his husband, Bill Noble, who he met in 1984 and married in 2014. Wendy Carter, Patty Dyke, and the staff at Kendal were welcome companions in Jim’s final months.
There will be a memorial at a date to be announced that will feature a musical celebration of his life.
The Rand-Wilson Funeral Home is assisting the family.
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