ある老人の死

2007年03月12日

クリスマス・カードにしては時期遅れのカードが一枚、アメリカから届いた。差出人は、Jon McGrew氏。私がピッツバーグの老人ホームでインターンとして働いていた時に、いつも夕食を共にしていたMac McGrew氏の息子である。

封を切ると、Mac McGrew氏が死去したという。享年94歳。昨年末は、転居の準備で忙しく、クリスマスカードを送れなかった。McGrew氏が受け取るはずだった、最後の日本からのカードが、まだ私の机の中にある。

Mac McGrew氏は、活字の大家だったと聞いていた。私がお会いした時には、目がほとんど見えず、耳もほとんど聞こえず、ご本人はそれを苦にしていた。しばしば息子さんが老人ホームを訪問していたものの、あまり幸福そうには見えなかった。一昨年前、私が久々にピッツバーグを訪問した時には、ベッドで、寝たきりに近い状態だった。あれが、最後の別れだった。

何の気もなしに「Mac McGrew」というキーワードで、Google検索してみた。すると、驚いたことに、ピッツバーグの地方紙で、McGrew氏の死去のニュースが取り上げられていた。

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http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07063/766709-122.stm

Obituary: M.F. "Mac" McGrew / Foremost authority on metal typefaces, worked at Ketchum
June 1, 1912 - Feb. 28, 2007
Sunday, March 04, 2007

By Mike Bucsko, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

At age 14, M.F. "Mac" McGrew bought a Kelsey Excelsior printing press, designed as a "parlour press" for hobbyists.

It was the beginning of Mr. McGrew's lifelong love of printing and typesetting, a romance that culminated six decades later in his publication of a reference book on American metal typefaces that has become the bible on the subject.

Seen as the leading authority on typefaces, Mr. McGrew received inquiries from around the world from those in the printing and design business who were stumped by a certain typeface, said Mr. McGrew's son, Jon, of Kingston, N.Y.

Mr. McGrew was also one of the founders of the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum in Chartiers, Washington County.

Mr. McGrew, 94, died Wednesday of complications from pneumonia at the Asbury Heights retirement community in Mt. Lebanon, where he had lived for the past 20 years.

Born in Chattanooga, Tenn., Marion Foreman McGrew moved to Crafton with his parents and younger sister in 1916. Mr. McGrew's interest in typefaces may have first been stirred by his father, Carl, an architect who specialized in inscriptional lettering, that is part of the architecture of buildings. The Chamber of Commerce Building, Downtown, is an example of Carl McGrew's work, said Lucinda Dyjak of Ben Avon, Mac McGrew's daughter.

In high school. Mr. McGrew experimented with typewriter typefaces and their use in portraits. A typewriter typeface portrait he made of President Franklin D. Roosevelt later appeared in "Ripley's Believe It or Not," his daughter said.

Mr. McGrew worked at a few printing companies in Pittsburgh while he attended the Carnegie Institute of Technology, now Carnegie Mellon University, before he opened his own print shop in Crafton. After a stint in the Army during World War II, Mr. McGrew moved back to Pittsburgh and continued to work in the printing business.

In 1950, Mr. McGrew got a job as the typographic director at what became the Ketchum Advertising agency. He worked at Ketchum until his retirement in 1977.

Over the years, Mr. McGrew wrote hundreds of articles about typefaces for various publications. He began work when he retired on his classic reference, American Metal Typefaces of the Twentieth Century, which was first published in 1986.

Mr. McGrew's encyclopedic knowledge of typefaces made him the person to seek for companies and individuals with questions, including Adobe and other companies that design computer software for the printing and graphic design business, his son said.

In addition to his son and daughter, Mr. McGrew is survived by a grandson. A memorial service for Mr. McGrew will be at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday at Asbury Heights, 700 Bower Hill Road, Mt. Lebanon.

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ただひたすらに活字と書体を愛し、「活字歴史家」として稀有な人生を歩んだMcGrew氏。Adobe社ほか数多くの企業が、彼の知見を求めてコンタクトしてきたという。奥様を亡くした後の晩年は寂しかったが、自分の好きなことをひたすら極めつくした人生は、それ自体が素晴らしい芸術だと思う。

山中れいじ

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