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Born in Camden, NJ on August 6, 1929, to Florence Martha (née Clarke) and Walter Frederick Cave. His father died when George was only 8 years old during the height of the Great Depression. Shortly thereafter, his mother made the difficult decision to send him to the Hershey Industrial School in Hershey, PA, a boarding school for boys.
After graduation, he enlisted in the US Army in June of 1947 and was recruited into the Army Security Agency. He completed basic training at Fort Jackson, SC and was transferred to Fort Monmouth, NJ. After taking a language aptitude test in 1947, he later studied Farsi at the Army Language School in Monterey, CA in 1949. He was honorably discharged in May of 1952.
Before beginning his studies at Princeton, he served as a cow hand on a small ranch in Wyoming for a short time. He left the ranch to attend Princeton University in the fall of 1952, where he began his study of Arabic. After his freshman year, he worked as a tool dresser on an oil rig in Oklahoma, tough work that convinced him to continue (and complete) his studies at Princeton. In the summer of 1955, he worked as an intern in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia for the Arabian American Oil Company.
Returning to Princeton in the fall of 1955, with an engagement ring in hand, he proposed to the one and only love of his life, Joan Barbara McCarthy, whom he married on December 26, 1955. He was so grateful to find a woman who loved him so deeply and shared his excitement for exploring the world.
He was recruited to work in the US Government Foreign Service before graduation and started in October of 1956. He had a long, distinguished career in the Foreign Service, serving primarily in the Middle East and Far East. He continued working until 2019. His storied career in the Foreign Service led to him being honored as the 2001 Milton Hershey School Alumnus of the Year.
His study of foreign language instilled a love of Sufi and Persian poetry, especially the works of Rumi, Hafiz and Omar Khayyam. In addition to writing a book translating their works, he also enjoyed writing during his retirement.
George was the beloved husband of the late Joan Barbara (née McCarthy) Cave. He is survived by their children Sharon, Constance (Connie) Grube (wife of Michael), William (Willie) (husband of Christine DeSantis), Eileen Gerohristodoulos (wife of Hrisostomos), and George Jr. (husband of Kelly). He was predeceased by his son James, who passed on March 8, 2020, and James’s former wife, Doris Bergmann.
Read Full Obituary and New York Times Obituary