From the June 18, 2001 issue of The Country Chronicle
Roxbury, MA–Deneal Albert Amos, 73, died Tuesday, June 14, 2001 at the Veterans Affairs Hospital in West Roxbury, MA.
He was born January 22, 1928, in San Francisco, CA, the son of Albert and Audrey Amos.
Deneal Amos was originally from San Francisco, CA. He worked his way through school; graduating from Lowell High School in 1945. He spent a year at Pacific University in Forest Grove, OR, a semester at the all-male University of San Francisco, a Jesuit school, and then graduated from the University of California at Berekely in 1949, majoring at Marketing and Analysis. He dropped out of Hastings Law School during the post-war depression and spent a couple of years scrambling to stay alive before finally going into the Army. (His draft letter came in the same mail with three serious job offers.)
He got his commission as a training officer on the day the Korean War ended, taking an early discharge on condition that he return to school. This he did, determined to continue the attempt to realize his father’s ideal of the Renaissance man.
Scholar, Athlete, Philosopher, Warrior, Poet, Musician and Artist. He had enough GI benefits for five years of study in the Social Sciences and the Humanities. In the end, he opted out of going for an advanced degree on the grounds that he was going to school for wisdom – not a better job opportunity.
Along the way Deneal worked as a teacher, administrator, clerk, farmhand, warehouseman, playground director, painter, house and fine cook, waiter, janitor and postal clerk, driver and carrier. When he returned to graduate school he majored in Education, the Social Sciences and Eastern thought. A life-changing spiritual experience confirmed him in his belief that the key to realizing the democratic ideal lay in an educated and informed citizenry, and the determination of everyone in any community to work for the benefit of others. He took the vow of Boddhisattva in 1956 – “I shall not rest until all sentient beings are liberated” – before he knew anything of meditation or Boddhisattvas. Mr. Amos’ educational ventures included:
Starting SameCon – the School of the Art of Moral and Ethical Conduct – a school for the art of living in 1957.
Helping start one of the first of the organized Experimental College at San Francisco State College in 1957.
“Grandfather” of Emerson College in Pacific Grove, CA in 1960.
Started New Canaan Academy in Putney, VT in 1975.
Teaching at Windham College in Putney, VT; Mark Hopkins College in Brattleboro, VT; Plymouth State College in Plymouth, NH; and acting as Meditation teacher/advisor at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH. He was active at Kendal at Hanover, Dartmouth College and Plymouth State College, teaching tai chi chuan and meditation. He was a member of Dartmouth College Campus Ministry. He will be remembered by the people whose lives he touched, the noontime basketball group and the breakfast crew at Lou’s Restaurant.
Survivors include his partner, Anita Beloin; a sister, Betty; his children, Bodhi, Hui Neng, Aishya, and Kaivallya; and grandchildren, nieces and nephews.
Calling hours were Friday from 6-8 pm and Saturday from 4-6 pm at Rand Wilson Funeral Home in Hanover, NH. A memorial service will be held Sunday at 3 pm at Rollins Chapel in Hanover.