Welcome to
Princeton University's
Class of 1962 

 

After graduation, he went on to Harvard Business School, concentrating in Marketing and Finance. Gene married Judith Stamp in 1963, and had two children, Alison and Jos. With a Harvard classmate, he founded a design store in Michigan called Orthogonality (“at right angles”) selling modern Scandinavian furnishings which he described as “practical works of art.”

 

After a divorce in the early ‘70s, Gene married Peg Howard in 1980, and became a stepfather to Peg’s daughter Tracey. He and Peg became interested in what Gene described in later life as “a wonderful spiritual work called the Pathwork, which provides tools to face and transform the negative shadow. Both positive and negative aspects exist in shadow. Often our fear of what lives in our shadow prevents us from discovering the positive treasures which also live there.”

 

Gene began training in humanistic psychology, earning a PhD in Clinical Psychology from Union Institute and University. Gene and Peg co-founded the Great Lakes Pathwork, and practiced psychotherapy, individually and in tandem, for decades. Moving to Del Mar, California, in the early ‘90s, the couple founded the Pathwork of California. Gene taught, led workshops, lectured in Europe and North and South America, and served as president of the International Pathwork Foundation.

 

For the last decade of their 40-year relationship, Gene devotedly looked after Peg during her slow decline from Parkinson's. They continued their lifelong loves of singing by joining a Parkinson’s therapeutic singing program, tellingly named the Tremble Clefs.  After a final three years with Parkinson’s-related dementia, Peg passed away in 2012.

 

Two years later, Gene met Judy Wilson through the Tremble Clefs. In a profile for the Del Mar Times, he assured readers that it’s never too late to love again: “I’m in my late 70s and this is the most passionate relationship I’ve had in my life.” Judy and Gene traveled all over North America in their RV visiting friends and family, including from Princeton, and were married in 2019.

 

A man of diverse and passionate interests, both worldly and spiritual, Gene once wrote that he loved “marriage, teaching, writing, gardening, cooking, trekking, and grandfathering.” He left behind an extensive network of family and friends with whom he had deeply loving and mutually-fulfilling relationships, among them his wife, children and grandchildren, colleagues, friends and neighbors. Members of the class of ‘62 extend their deepest sympathies to all of Gene’s family and friends.

 

Two devoted friends of Gene’s, who knew him well, prepared a loving tribute to Gene, which is included below, giving a sensitive understanding of the Gene they knew.

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We have lost a good and noble man in the death of Gene Humphrey. He was a dear friend to many of us and a steady presence in so many groups. Gene was a lion for the truth, a committed Pathworker and a lover of life.

 

The Pathwork has benefited greatly from the efforts and presence of Gene. He served diligently for 40 years in many leadership positions in our community. He was part of a small group in Michigan who studied the lectures, became helpers and launched the Great Lakes Pathwork in 1978. Gene and Peg wrote summaries and questions for study of the Guide Lectures, led group workshops integrating Bio-energetics and Humanistic Psychology. When they moved West, Gene and his wife Peg, did the same by establishing the Pathwork of California and hosted the International

Pathwork Conference, In Spirit, in 2000. He gathered groups of strangers and built community.

 

Gene brought energy to organizations. He served on the Pathwork Foundation and for a period of time as its President. Gene also served as President of Pathwork Press and the Editor of Guidelines, newsletter of Pathwork of California. He often wrote articles and teachings that revealed his own process as an example for others to follow his lead to look within. He was often a contributor to Pathwork talent shows and auctions celebrating the end of each year with a song or two, a funny skit, and shared enthusiasm for every participant, and was an avid fundraiser.

 

Gene was always thrilled to teach. He labored over his preparation of lectures, thought about his students and taught in many locations throughout the US and internationally. Even in the hardest times he sought to learn and grow through the loss he endured with his wife Peg’s illness and later death; his cancer and many treatments; the shifts in the world politically and within the Pathwork itself. Gene did his homework to face himself and shared his insights.

 

Gene had a strong educational foundation, Princeton, Harvard and Union Graduate School, that served him well in his ability to manifest his creative visions. He was a businessman, writer, psychologist, teacher and a dreamer.

 

Gene was kind, strong, gentle and possessed a wonderful sense of humor. His optimism and persistence remained steady through to the end of his long life. He was a cheerleader for everyone he knew and a true friend. He once wrote, “A true friend is one who has the courage and love to risk the relationship to speak the truth as they see it.”

 

Gene was that kind of true friend – loving and honest and willing to risk discomfort to be in truth and love, to find unity. He loved his children Jos, Alison and Tracey. He enjoyed the sweetness of being a grandfather. He often regaled friends of his children’s accomplishments, their lovely lives, children and adventures. Gene remained a child at heart.

 

Gene remarried in this past year to a delightful woman, Judy, whom he had met in a Parkinson’s support group. With Judy he opened himself to loving openly, sweetly without reserve. They traveled all over North America in their RV visiting friends and family and sharing their good fortune to live and love again. In Ajijic, Mexico, family and friends gathered to celebrate this late-in-life wedding for the happy couple. He is missed and survived by Judy, his children and grandchildren, friends and neighbors. Gene made an indelible mark on all he touched, served and loved.