William Breitenbach

William Kern Breitenbach died on December 7, 2025, in Tacoma, Washington. Bill was born in Litchfield, Minnesota on October 21, 1949. The first in his family to attend college, Bill earned a bachelor’s degree in History and Literature from Harvard College in 1971. After completing a year-long fellowship at Cambridge University, Bill earned a doctoral degree from Yale University.

Bill then spent two years teaching and researching at the College of William and Mary on a fellowship awarded by the Institute of Early American History and Culture and the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. There he met Carole Johnson, and they married in 1979.

One year later, Bill accepted a teaching position at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma. He spent the next forty years teaching in the university’s history department. The recipient of teaching awards and research grants and the author of several academic articles, Bill was always happiest in the classroom. The historical subject that he most enjoyed tackling with his students was what Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his essay “Fate,” called “the practical question of the conduct of life--how shall I live?”

Bill lived an exemplary life. As one colleague observed, “Possessing a keen intellect and a vast store of knowledge, Bill always conducted himself in a way so that his brilliance would light up those around him, in the hall, in the classroom, and in life.”

Bill’s survivors include his wife Carole; children Eva Breitenbach (Brian Thurber) and Max Breitenbach (Katarina Chen); two grandchildren; his mother Phyllis Smith; siblings Robert Breitenbach and Barbara Pike; and many nieces and nephews. A memorial service will be held in early 2026 at the University of Puget Sound. Remembrances may be made to the Professor William Breitenbach Endowed Fund in History at Puget Sound for the benefit of history students and the broader Puget Sound community.