In memoriam – CEHD Connect, fall 2015
Richard Noble “Dick” Hey, professor emeritus and former chair of the Department of Family Social Science, passed away April 22, 2015, at his home in Roseville. He was 96. A beloved teacher, mentor, and colleague, he served as president of the National Council on Family Relations and the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy.
Hey grew up an avid reader in Okeene, Oklahoma, and moved to Washington, D.C., after high school to work for the Department of Agriculture. In 1941, he was drafted into the military. During his service, Hey regularly corresponded with Miriam Jennings, and they married while he was stationed in Texas. The Heys moved to Kentucky to attend Berea College because it allowed married students to live together, enabling them to share care of their first child. Dick Hey went on to Newton Theological Seminary, where he completed a divinity degree and was ordained; and Columbia University, where he completed a Ph.D. in sociology. He then joined the Marriage Council of Philadelphia at the Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He was a pioneer in the technique of working with couples together in therapy rather than assessing spouses individually. Joining the faculty in Minnesota, he worked to establish the first postdoctoral training program for marriage counselors. After retirement he continued taking students on international trips to study cross-cultural family systems and home economics.
Hey was a mentor to many, a lover of art and music, and a husband and father dedicated to forward thinking and generosity. He is preceded in death by his wife Miriam and survived by their three children, five grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.