David Kaiser, who died last week of brain cancer at age 50, was known to some as a crusading journalist whose essays in The New York Review of Books took on prison rape and the efforts of Exxon Mobil to cover up what the company knew about climate change. If you knew of him without being familiar with his contributions to the Review, then you likely are acquainted with the lineage of the Rockefeller family and the world of big dollar philanthropy: Kaiser was the great-great-grandson of John D. Rockefeller and the president of the Rockefeller Family Fund. His New York Times obituary, by John Schwartz, who covers climate change for the Times, is informative and affecting, never more than in its conclusion:
David Walter Kaiser was born on July 27, 1969, in Cambridge, Mass., to Neva Rockefeller Goodwin and Walter Kaiser. His mother, who survives him, is a distinguished fellow at Boston University's Global Development Policy Center. His father, who died in 2016, was a professor of English and comparative literature at Harvard University.
In addition to his wife and his mother, Mr. Kaiser is survived by two daughters and a sister, Miranda Kaiser.
Mr. Kaiser graduated from Columbia University in 1991 with a degree in American history. He and Ms. Corbett met in 2011 through the online dating service OkCupid. They discovered a shared interest in criminal justice reform, Ms. Corbett recalled, and Mr. Kaiser seemed startlingly open.
"I asked what the worst thing he'd ever done in a relationship was—and he told me!" she said. "I thought he was being so transparent, but there was a lot he wasn't telling me."
What he had left out was that he was a Rockefeller. She said that when he did tell her, months later, she wanted to break off the relationship; she was unable to see, she said, how "a person with a working-class background and leftist politics could possibly have a successful relationship with someone from a family of such privilege." They married in 2012.
In late 2018, Mr. Kaiser began experiencing episodes of forgetfulness, which led to his diagnosis early the next year. Ms. Corbett said that in recent months he had told her: "Of course I wish my life were going to be longer. I wish I could see who the girls will turn into." But, she said, he added, "I've also been an extremely lucky person—more lucky than most."
The above picture, taken in Maine in 2017 by Ben Stechschulte, accompanied the obit. David's hand is on his mother's shoulder. His sister Miranda is at the far left. I think it's an odd photo: three pairs, one a mother and son, another (center) a married couple (Rebecca Rockefeller Lambert and her husband, Michael), and then at the left Miranda and Peter Case. I've read and re-read Peter's wedding notice in the Times without grasping how he fits in. Maybe that's why he and Miranda, though paired, have a space between them. He got the message about the shirts, however.
Comments