Deborah Pellow

Post a Message of Sympathy | View Messages of Sympathy | Printer Friendly


Deborah Pellow, accomplished anthropologist, friend, and mentor, died suddenly on Thursday May 29, 2025. She was born in Los Angeles, CA, March 21, 1945, the only child of Frieda Kaplan and David Pellow. At age five she and her mother moved to New York City and then Philadelphia, where she grew up in the loving care of her mother’s large extended family. Deborah married philosopher Irving Thalberg Jr. who died in 1987. Her second husband, mystery writer David Cole, died in 2015. She began a deep and loving relationship with Bill Rahling in 2020. Their companionship brought them joy and love especially through the pandemic, until he died in 2021, just as they were to marry.

Deborah was Professor of Anthropology at Syracuse University for over forty years and became a seminal figure in her field. After a BA at the University of Pennsylvania, she received a Ph.D. from Northwestern in 1974. She undertook fieldwork primarily in Ghana and later in Nigeria, Japan, and China. She was intensely curious about how people negotiate relationships and identities in rapidly growing and evolving cities, and how we navigate multiple and overlapping urban, rural, and international realms.

Deborah’s vast scholarly output significantly shaped contemporary approaches to space and place, including through the collaborative projects she spearheaded with colleagues across the disciplines. Her fifth and most recent book, Living Afar, Longing for Home: The Role of Place in the Creation of the Dagomba New Elite, examines spatialized transitions in status and wealth. Although she received many prestigious awards for her scholarship, and the William Wasserstrom Prize for the Teaching of Graduate Students, her most cherished honor was a citation from the neighborhood where she did much of her fieldwork in Ghana, naming her an “Ambassador of Greater Accra Zongo Chief to the United States of America.”

Deborah grounded her scholarship in perceptive observation and deep concern for human relationships, and this extended to her mentorship of her students. She was fiercely committed to generations of students who carry forward her legacy of spirited inquiry and compassion. Her home became a vibrant gathering place for international students and faculty whose families and loved ones were oceans away.

Deborah helped shape the intellectual life of Syracuse University over several decades. She was a founding director of the Space and Place Initiative at Maxwell’s Global Affairs Institute, was active in the University Senate, chaired the Senate Library Committee and a Chancellor Search Committee, and taught for many years in the intensive Interdisciplinary Master of Social Science Professional Program. Deborah’s lifelong commitment to women’s rights prepared her to become an early director of the Women and Gender Studies Program. She was widely admired in these roles for her clarity and collegiality. Deborah’s academic service extended to the American Anthropological Association, especially in the Society for Urban National and Transnational Anthropology.

Beyond academia Deborah lived fully. She reveled in beauty and was a patron of music, art, theater, and dance. She actively supported cultural, arts, social justice, political, and women’s rights organizations including serving on the board of The Friends of Chamber Music, and Francis House, a home for the dying, where she was a pet support volunteer. She enjoyed knitting and book groups and most recently learned to play bridge, “to keep her brain sharp.” She participated in all these activities with grace, conviction, and passion. She was an avid traveler, always eager to learn, observe, and connect. She remained the quintessential anthropologist even in her personal travel, helping her more introverted companions have remarkable – and sometimes unusual and amazing – experiences.

Deborah maintained deep and powerful relationships with hundreds of friends, former students, colleagues, and others she encountered throughout her life. She readily shared generous attention, warmth, good humor and an open, tender heart. She could be spirited, irreverent, and boisterous but was always genuine and deeply true to her loving nature. She was a source of steady warmth, good humor and just plain fun. She had a fierce sense of loyalty. Her presence in the lives of those who knew her was profound and lasting.

Deborah loved her animals and plants, recently her cat Mischa and dog Brody. She is now survived by Czerny the cat and Morrie the dog, who have found new, loving homes. She is also survived by too many human friends and family of choice to mention, and the Kaplan cousins and extended family. We remember Deborah with love, and deeply honor her life of kindness, knowledge, generosity, and community.
A service to honor her memory and wonderful life is being planned for the fall. Service information will be posted as it is available www.sisskindfuneralservice.com