Remembering Life of UVA English Professor

Karli Turner, staff writer

Marilyn “Gail” Duggan, Hoyt’s wife, still remembers the day she met Hoyt Duggan. It was during her first year at Baylor University in Texas. One day, Gail’s roommate left her a note asking if she wanted to meet up under the flagpole at school to go on a missionary trip across town to read to the less fortunate. “I wasn’t into that sort of thing, but I had nothing to do that day. I was bored, so I went,” Gail said. They met under a flagpole in the schoolyard and eventually got to talking on the bus.

After that, Gale commented, “Hoyt wouldn’t stop asking me on dates after that.”

Hoyt was born on April 5, 1938, in Texas. Where exactly? Gail doesn’t remember. However, this is what she remembers about Hoyt Duggan:

He grew up in Joinerville, a small town in East Texas. When Hoyt’s father was not working at a nearby oil field, he taught him how to read and write. It was important to Mr. Duggan to teach Hoyt these things before he started school. Hoyt loved reading and writing so much that he became bored when he started school because he already knew all of the material. He quickly became a nuisance because he was so much further ahead than everyone else. Around third grade, his teachers made him go to the library to research and write about topics he was interested in.

Unfortunately, Hoyt did not make it past his first year at Baylor. His father was fired from his job at the oil field thus forcing the family out of their house. Since Mr. and Mrs. Duggan were from Louisiana, they decided to move the family to Shreveport. There, Hoyt went to Centenary College during the day and worked as a watchman at night. During this time, he met Mrs. Clark, a woman who ran the school’s bookstore. Eventually, Hoyt began working at the bookstore where he quickly formed a bond with Mrs. Clark and her husband. While working at the library, he spent most of his time there reading books.

From a young age, Hoyt wanted to go to the University of Oxford, in England, for their Rhodes Scholarship. With help from Mrs. Clark, Hoyt applied to Oxford. After graduating from Centenary, where Hoyt spent the next few years studying Medieval English. When he graduated from Oxford, Hoyt decided to return to the United States.

The Vietnam War had just started when Hoyt returned from England. Quickly, Hoyt was drafted. Luckily, though, he avoided going into combat. Hoyt became stationed at Fort Holabird, as an officer for an Army intelligence spy unit, in Baltimore, Maryland. Hoyt stayed there for his two full years of military service and his unit was the last not be sent to Vietnam. Sadly, the men after him weren’t so lucky and most of them were sent to Vietnam, where many of them died.

Years later, after leaving the army, Hoyt decided to go to Princeton University to pursue a graduate degree in literature. From there, Hoyt got a job as a professor at UVA. There, he focused on Medieval English and translated works like Piers Plowman and the Wars of Alexander. He also published many scholarly journals before retiring from UVA in the early 2000s.

Later in life, Hoyt was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. After many years of battling this terrible disease, Hoyt passed away April 8, 2019, days after his 81 birthday. Hoyt was known by many in the community as a smart, kind, and hardworking individual. Even though he is gone, his work still inspires others and he will be greatly missed by those who loved him most.