Joseph Malof
May 26, 1934 — January 7, 2015
North Austin Location
Joseph Fetler Malof of Austin, Texas passed away at his home Wednesday, January 7, 2015 at the age of 80.
Joe was born on May 26, 1934, in Riga, Latvia, to William and Barbara (Kovalevsky) Fetler. He was the youngest of 13 children, raised in Riga, Holland, Sweden, Switzerland, and Evanston, Illinois. The family immigrated to the United States in 1939 and Joe became a US citizen in 1947. He graduated from Kenyon College in Ohio in 1956 before earning a PhD at the University of California in Los Angeles in 1962.
Joe was a professor of English literature at the University of Texas at Austin from 1961 until his retirement in 2002. He specialized in modern American poetry and fiction, and his book A Manual of English Meters became an influential reference for scholars in his field. He won numerous teaching awards, including Outstanding Educator of America and the College of Liberal Arts award for outstanding classroom performance.
Joe met the poet Delores Ann Kildare in Los Angles, and the couple married in 1957. They moved to Austin in 1961, where they raised their three children. After Delores died in 2005, Joe edited a volume of her poetry, . In 2006 Joe wrote and produced a video documentary about the Fetler-Malof family’s immigration to the United States. The film, can be viewed on .
Joe is survived by his children, Andrew Malof and wife Judith “Michael” Williams, of Austin; Jessica Vivian and husband Craig Vivian, of Monmouth, Illinois; and Peter Malof, of Austin. He will be dearly missed by his grandchildren, Jacob Malof, of Austin; Benjamin Vivian, of Monmouth; Paul Vivian, of St. Paul, Minnesota; and Leo Levy, of Los Angeles. He will also be remembered by his vast, extended family around the world, particularly his surviving brothers and sisters: Paul Fetler, of Sarasota, FL; Elisabeth Bregenzer, of Kooskia, ID; Andrew Fetler, of Hadley, MA; David Fetler, of Rochester, NY; and James Fetler, of Mountain View, CA.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations be sent to the Global Fund for Women.
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