Carleton Lawrence Riley

Carleton Lawrence Riley Jr., 84, emeritus professor of History at Holy Family University, died Sunday, September 6th, of natural causes at his home in West Philadelphia, surrounded by his loving family.

Carleton disliked being called "Junior;" at a young age, he decided he preferred "Larry." Among other things, he was known for his humor, eclectic job history, and his great love of family and friends. He was born in the Bronx in 1930 to Lillian and Carleton Sr. and grew up alongside younger siblings Gail and John. His life was deeply colored by the Great Depression and World War 2, a childhood spent scavenging newspapers with his sister to sell for theater tickets and throwing rocks at passing freight trains so their workers would return fire with their considerably more valuable cargo, coal.

As a young teenager, Larry left the Bronx to attend Mount Saint Alphonsus Seminary in Esopus, NY. His fiery-red hair and 6'5 height earned him the nickname "Jolly Red Giant." After graduation he became one of founding brothers of Holy Cross monastery, spending the next few years as a Trappist monk in rural Virginia. He and his fellow brothers built the monastery out of the ground's existing stables while tending to its thousand acres and its thousand heads of cattle.

With a newly built monastery to add to his growing list of occupations, odd jobs, and accomplishments, Larry went on to study at Fordham University. Attaining his MS in 1960, the rumblings of the Cold War led him to pursue his doctorate in Russian studies at Georgetown. Larry completed his dissertation on the Stalin Old Bolshevik Trials in June 1974, evoking the pointed interest of the Cold War-embroiled CIA; he politely declined their offer.

He met his wife, Adrienne, at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC. Two peas in a pod, they had a whirlwind courtship and, ten weeks later, they married in January 1974 and moved to Saratoga, both hired as part of the team founding Verrazano College, the Italian-American gift to America for the bicentennial, a school dedicated to the humanities. In 1983, after nearly ten years spent in a mountainside log cabin, the family moved to Philadelphia, where he raised his sons, became an active thirty-year member of St Francis DeSales Parish, and where he taught for twenty years at Holy Family College, retiring as a full professor emeritus. A lifelong bibliophile, Larry collected over fifteen thousand books and read every single one (many of them two or three times). Over the course of his life Larry worked a wide range of jobs--railway porter, bee wrangler, headmaster, emergency room night supervisor, stay-at-home dad. He also secured a callback for the short-lived 90s revival of classic game show You Bet Your Life (they loved his characteristic, iconoclastic shorts & bowtie combo). He claimed the secret to maintaining youth was "having children after age 50."

Larry was a devotee of the horse races and an excellent handicapper, though perhaps not an excellent bettor (never betting more than $2, even on a surefire win). In retirement, he became an avid epistolarian, writing not just as a mediator in the West Philadelphia inter-faith spiritual community, but also crafting voluminous missives to his family and friends, especially his grandson Jack, a sort of time capsule of letters, to be opened as yearly milestones are reached, ensuring his wisdom, intelligence, and heart will remain with those he loves for years to come.

Larry is survived by his wife, Adrienne, his two sons, Andrew (Alison) and David (Graziella), and his grandson, Jack. A viewing is to be held at 7-9 pm Wednesday, September 9, at Vraim Funeral Home, 66 S. State Rd. Upper Darby, PA and a memorial mass is to be held at 11 a.m. Thursday, September 10 at St. Francis de Sales Church, 917 S 47th St, Philadelphia. Interment is Private.  In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to Saint Francis de Sales Parish http://www.saintfrancisdesales.net/parish-giving/.