FAIRHOPE, Ala. — A memorial service will be held Saturday, Dec. 20, at 1 p.m., in the Giddens Auditorium of the Fairhope Public Library for former Fairhope resident, Roy Vernon Callow.

Callow died on June 16, 2008, in New Haven, Conn., where he had lived since July 2007. He was 89 years young. Before moving to New Haven, Callow had called Fairhope home, moving here in 1988 with his bride, Marian. The couple moved to Fairhope as a result of Roy’s fascination with the theory behind the founding of the utopian community that became the Fairhope Single Tax Colony. Previously the couple lived for 34 years in Old Greenwich, and Norwalk, Conn.

Callow was born in London, England on Oct. 31, 1918, and spent his childhood years about 80 miles from London in the town of Clacton on Sea in Essex, where the mouth of the Thames River empties into the North Sea. He served as a systems designer during World War II with the British Atomic Energy Research Establishment in England and in Canada, and subsequently worked as a liaison with the British Embassy in Washington, D.C.

Callow immigrated to the United States in 1950, and became a U.S. citizen in 1957. He was employed with Reflectone Inc. in Stamford, Conn. and later with Dunlap & Associates in Darien, Conn., and Lepofsky, Lepofsky and Lang in Norwalk, until he retired in 1984.

He was preceeded in death by his wife, Marian Callow, who died in Fairhope in 1989. Callow is survived by his stepson, Philip Yampolsky, and his wife, Tinuk, of Champaign, Ill.; one grandson, Arif Yampolsky, also of Champaign; his nephew, Peter Nicholas Callow, and his wife, Sophie Hedworth; and several other nieces and nephews of England.

Those Fairhopers fortunate enough to know Roy Callow over the last almost 20 years of his life, knew him as an always interesting and interested individual. He freely shared his views on living what he called a “full-size life” or a life fully aware of its interconnection with the lives of others and with “the surround.” As a systems designer, he viewed life as a conscious choice made on the drawing board of each individual.

He believed in the miraculous nature of the cosmos and of human life but did not ascribe to Descartes’ philosophy that set humans above the rest of nature or Darwin’s theory that described nature as a battleground among species fighting to survive at the expense of one another.

Callow ardently believed in the need for individuals to see themselves as responsible not only to themselves but to other living things and to the planet. He enthusiastically embraced social, political and philosophical theories with the gusto of a young student and was an avid reader on a variety of subjects from quantum physics to modern jazz.

Roy loved his daily walks around Fairhope and his visits to the library where he attempted to quench his insatiable thirst for knowledge. At the age of 88, with the help of his “girlfriends” at the Fairhope Library, Roy learned to Google information on computers, adding to his wealth of knowledge on many and varied subjects.

All are welcome to attend this memorial to a generous patron of the Fairhope Public Library and the Marietta Johnson School of Organic Education.