Robert Norton Ganz Jr. of Chilmark, an English professor and World War II veteran who earned a Purple Heart, died on April 9 after a brave battle with sarcoma. He was 97 and had been a Vineyarder for 85 years.

“Here lies the late Bob Ganz — but better late than never” was the epitaph he once joked he wanted. He died late in age but all too soon for his family.

He was born in Boston on July 27, 1925 to Claire Louise MacIntyre Ganz and Robert N. Ganz Sr., a pediatrician. He attended Browne and Nichols School — which later became the Buckingham Browne & Nichols School — in Cambridge. His best friends at Brown and Nichols included Robert Whitman, Norwood Smith and Peter Powers. Mr. Powers was, with Bob, a co-captain of their track team and he died during the Battle of the Bulge.

Bob was hired by Peter Powers’s father to write for the Boston Globe editorial page. He wrote under the moniker Uncle Dudley from 1953-1955 on a variety of topics. Bob also enjoyed writing detailed class reports for the Buckingham Browne & Nichols alumni bulletin. In 2022, Robert and Marina Whitman generously endowed a fund in Bob’s honor to support the annual expenses of the school’s archives.

Bob first came to Martha’s Vineyard with his parents in the summer of 1936 to visit Dr. Thomas Goethals and his wife Mary. At their suggestion, Bob’s parents bought Hollyholm, a summer home in Chilmark, just in time for the 1938 hurricane.

He was close with all three of the Goethals’ sons and became fast friends with John Gilbert, whose family’s farm was just across the road. The two 12-year-olds, Bobby and Johnny, played chess in the middle of North Road. They remained lifelong friends.

After graduating from Browne and Nichols in 1943, Bob matriculated at Harvard College in the class of 1947. After one semester, he volunteered for the Army. He served as a rifleman with the 10th Mountain Division during World War II. He was wounded in Italy at the age of 19, just two weeks before the German army’s surrender. He received the Bronze Star, two Battle Stars and the Purple Heart.

After the war, he returned to Harvard, where he became the jazz reviewer for The Harvard Crimson and co-founder of the Harvard Jazz Club. He graduated with an AB in American Studies and stayed on to complete his MA and PhD in English, studying the poetry of Robert Frost.

His doctoral dissertation is titled The Pattern of Meaning in Robert Frost’s Poetry. In the middle 1950s, Bob was among those who enjoyed late-night exchanges with Mr. Frost at his cabin in Vermont. He said in the course of these conversations, “thought seemed to delight in its own spiraling expansion.”

In 1968, Bob wrote a book, Robert Frost and the Play of Belief, that was accepted for publication by London-based Chatto and Windus. However, in the end he modestly felt his work needed re-working and he pulled it from publication. He continued thinking and writing on this topic for the rest of his life. He also wrote essays and book reviews, some of which can be found online.

Bob met Anne Hotchkiss in the summer of 1962. After an autumn of correspondence, their first date occurred when he invited her to Robert Frost’s funeral in February 1963. Bob said afterwards that Frost, as an ironist, would not have minded it being the occasion for him to fall in love. They were married August 28, 1963 at the Old Whaling Church in Edgartown.

He and Anne had four children. He was a loving and amusing father and said he enjoyed coming home to a group of people who were in his corner.

He began his teaching career at Yale, before moving on to the University of Virginia and finally settling at George Washington University in 1964. In addition to 20th century American poetry and literature, he also taught the Great Books. After 58 years of teaching, he retired when he was 86 years old, having taught more than 350 classes and likely more than 7,000 students.

Bob enjoyed teaching and was proud of his 3.8 rating on ratemyprofessors.com, where a student commented, “the man will die teaching, and if you are lucky enough to have been there, cherish it for life. An unforgettable experience.”

Anne and Bob moved to Chilmark to live year-round in 2013. He had long suspected his “better self lay beneath the leaves on Martha’s Vineyard,” as he wrote in an early letter to Anne. This retreat to the woods of Hollyholm allowed him to observe the seasons, deepen relationships with friends and family both on and off the Island and continue his scholarship.

According to Rebecca Gilbert, Johnny’s daughter, when her husband Randy Ben David heard Bob had died, he responded, “Now he’s playing chess with Johnny.” Bob’s family can only say, “Thank you, Randy, and ‘let it be so.’”

Bob is survived by his wife Anne; children Claire, Jennie, Holly and Robert 3rd; and grandchildren Owen and Hugh Singer, and Henry and Mina Ganz.

A memorial service is scheduled for 2 p.m. on Sept. 9 at the Grange Hall in West Tisbury.

A prize for student achievement in the study of American poetry is being established at George Washington University. For information, please contact his family at ganzpoetry@gmail.com.