Paul Zolbrod

Paul Zolbrod, professor and author, died on February 21, 2025 at home in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He was 92.

Paul's best-known work was Diné Bahane': The Navajo Creation Story, considered to be the most complete version of the sacred stories in print. (New Mexico University Press, 1984). In addition to being a cherished husband and father, he was a beloved professor and mentor who touched the lives of thousands of students.

Paul was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1932 to the late Caroline Engler Zolbrod and Herman Zolbrod, both immigrants. He graduated from Mt. Lebanon High School and took a job driving a delivery truck until he was drafted into the U.S. Army, where he served in Japan from 1953-1955, changing his life's course.

The GI Bill enabled Paul to get his bachelor's degree in English at University of Pittsburgh. A self-described lackadaisical high school student, he graduated Summa Cum Laude in 1958. He was a Fulbright Fellow in France in 1958-59 and an Andrew Mellon Fellow at University of Pittsburgh, where he earned his doctorate, specializing in late Medieval and early Renaissance English literature. Paul joined the faculty of Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania in 1964. Several years later, a visit to the Museum of the Plains Indians sparked his curiosity about whether Native American oral tradition included epics such as those attributed to Homer. Thus began the research into Native American poetics that guided his scholarship for the rest of his life.

Paul was the recipient of two National Endowment for the Humanities Research Fellowships. Other books written by him include Reading the Voice: Native American Oral Poetry on the Page (University of Utah Press, 1995), Weaving a World: Textiles and the Navajo Way of Seeing, (with Roseann S. Willink, Museum of New Mexico Press,1996), Battlesongs: A Story of the Korean War in Four Movements (Museum of the American Military Family, 2017), and the forthcoming Paradise Revisited (Pleiades Press, 2025).

Teaching was Paul's passion. He was a Frederick F. Seeley Professor of English at Allegheny College from 1989 to 1994. After he retired from Allegheny in 1994, he taught at the Crownpoint branch campus of Diné College for twenty years, as well as at New Mexico Highlands University and Pacifica Graduate Institute. To honor Paul, Allegheny alumnae and friends created the Dr. Paul Zolbrod Interdisciplinary Communications Fund to support work in the humanities, where contributions can be made in his honor.

Paul is survived by his wife, Joanne McCloskey; his children, Zoe Zolbrod and Aaron Zolbrod; his stepchildren, Eric McCloskey and Laurel McCloskey; his grandchildren, Atillio Zolbrod DeBernardi, Adalina Zolbrod, and Lillian Zolbrod DeBernardi; his previous spouse, Joan Dietrich Zolbrod; his sister, Wilma Austern, and ten nieces and nephews. There will be a celebration of life at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Meadville, where Paul was a member for many years, on May 30, 2025 at 2:00 pm.