H. Leroy Vail

Funeral services for History Professor H. Leroy Vail took place March 31 in Concord, Mass.

Vail died on March 27 at his Concord home after a long struggle with lymphoma. He was 58.

A specialist in the history of Southern Africa, Vail possessed a rare gift for illuminating history with insights from poetry and song. He pioneered in documenting the colonial history of south-central Africa, especially in Malawi, Zambia, and Mozambique. In both Africa and the United States, he advised and mentored many scholars in the field.

His death halts several years of work on a dictionary of the Lakeside Tonga people of Malawi--a project he had nearly completed.

Before coming to Harvard as an associate professor in 1983, Vail taught at the universities of Malawi (1967-71), Zambia (1973-78), Virginia (1978-79), and California (1979-80). He was also a fellow at Yale's Southern African Research Program (1981-82) and a scholar in residence at the University of Virginia's Carter Woodson Institute (1982-83).

By the time Vail became a full professor here in 1990, he had earned a reputation as a dedicated and masterly teacher. Although Southern Africa was Vail's main scholarly focus, his teaching experience ranged from comparative African linguistics and world history to Islamic, Russian, and East and Central African history.

His writings included many scholarly papers, and he collaborated with Landeg White on two books: Capitalism and Colonialism in Mozambique: A Study of Quelimane District (1980) and Power and the Praise Poem: Southern African Voices in History (1991). He also edited The Creation of Tribalism in Southern Africa (1989).

Born in Boston on Aug. 5, 1940, Vail graduated from Boston Latin School (1958) and received his A.B. (1962), magna cum laude, from Boston College. He earned his M.A. (1964) and Ph.D. (Bantu linguistics, 1972) from the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Vail leaves his wife of 31 years, Patricia Ann (Horochena), their daughter Sharon Mulenga, and a brother David Claude, of Denver, Colo.

A Harvard memorial service will be announced later.

The family requests that memorial contributions be made to the Lymphoma Research Foundation of America, 8800 Venice Blvd., Suite 207, Los Angeles, CA 90034.