Remembering Ron Offen

Ronald (Ron) Charles Offen, 79, of Glenview, Illinois, died on August 9th
in Glenview. The cause of death was cancer.

Ron was born October 2, 1930 in Chicago to Charles Offen and Ellen
Shirreffs Offen. He graduated from Austin High School, received an A.A.
from Wright College and an M.A. in English Language and Literature from
the University of Chicago. In the 1970s and 1980s he lived in Southern
California and was delighted to return to the Chicago area in 2001.
He was divorced from his first wife, Sharon Nealy; his second wife, Rosine
Brueckner Franke, died in 2001. He is survived by his third wife, Beverly
Kahling Offen, his sister, Pam (Charles) Veley, his children, Eric (Diane)
Offen and Deirdre (Don) Junta, Michele Offen and Darren (Beatriz) Offen,
five grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.

Ron held many jobs, from taxi driver to insurance investigator to middle
school library assistant. But the force that gave his life meaning was
always the written word; he was an author, a poet, playwright, editor, and
theater producer.

In 1989, after a bout with cancer, he thought about how important poetry
had been to him and how much it had given him. To give something back to
poetry and poets, he started the magazine Free Lunch, with the commitment
to give all serious poets in the U.S. a free subscription and also to
comment on all work submitted to him. Free Lunch has published many of the
best-known contemporary American poets. In 2009, due to his illness,
publication of the magazine ceased.

Ron loved his wife, his children, his many friends, poetry, trees, the
color orange, playing the trumpet and the piano, cookies, contemporary art
and architecture, WFMT, caring for his collection of house plants, books,
turtles, jazz, Bach and Chopin, swimming, the Midwest, and evenings at
home.

There will no funeral services. A memorial celebration will be scheduled.
Ron’s papers are archived in Special Collections at the University of
Chicago. Memorial donations may be made to the University of Chicago with
an indication that they are intended for support of Special Collections.
Send to Judy Lindsey, Director of Development, University of Chicago
Library, 1100 East 57th Street, Chicago, IL 60637.