David Roger Giltrow died on August 29, 2023, at Christus Saint Vincent Regional Medical Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico, after a fall at his home. He had been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia in June. He was 85 years old. Remembering David, his many friends have used words such as brilliant, thoughtful, insightful, engaged, wise, gentle, and kind. He was deeply committed to Quaker principles. He delighted in telling a good story, punctuated with his infectious laugh.
David was born on December 18, 1937, in Middletown, Ohio, to Aubrey Giltrow and Ruby Jane Senseman Giltrow, and grew up in Saline, Michigan. Raised in the Methodist church, he began attending activities of the Religious Society of Friends as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, joining the Ann Arbor Friends Meeting in 1959. In college, David worked as a photographer for the Michigan Daily student newspaper and the campus humor magazine The Gargoyle; he documented presidential candidate John F. Kennedy’s impromptu speech hinting at the formation of the Peace Corps, civil rights actions in Michigan and the South, and jazz festivals in Newport, Detroit, and Chicago—and photographed weddings and babies to help pay for school and travel. A collection of his photographs from that time is archived at the University of Michigan’s Bentley Historical Library. He graduated with a B.A. in education in 1961.
After college, David performed three years of alternative service in Tanzania with the American Friends Service Committee’s Voluntary International Service Assignments (VISA) program (1961-1964). His skill as a photographer soon found him assigned to the Tanzanian government film unit, making films focused on nation building and rural development. That experience led him to graduate school at Syracuse University, where he earned an M.S. (1966) and a Ph.D. (1973) in educational technology. It was back in Tanzania for his doctoral research that David met Peggy Medina; they were married under the care of Ann Arbor Friends Meeting in 1971.
David went to work for the TV College of the City Colleges of Chicago in 1974; he and Peggy rode their bicycles to attend Chicago’s Northside Friends Meeting. In 1978 they left their Chicago jobs to do research in London and Kenya for a book about the British Colonial Film Unit. Soon they were back in Tanzania, where David served on the agricultural faculty of the University of Dar es Salaam in Morogoro from 1980 to 1983. In 1984 they returned to the United States and settled in Santa Fe, near Peggy’s extensive Northern New Mexico family. From this home base David worked in developing countries in Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East as an independent consultant on education, communications, forestry, and development projects for the United Nations, the World Bank, and the U.S. Agency for International Development. He continued this work until he retired in the early 2000s.
Influenced in part by Peggy, who was a reference librarian with the New Mexico State Library, David was instrumental in establishing the New Mexico Library Foundation, securing continuing funding for libraries statewide, and advocating for libraries with legislators and voters. Although he was not a librarian, the New Mexico Library Association recognized David's contributions with its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2003. Enduring friendships and wide travel were features of David’s life, and retirement often found him and Peggy heading out by train, plane, and ship, visiting old friends and making new ones across the U.S. and around the world. At home, he was a valued neighbor, an engaged citizen, and a fan of Newfoundland dogs and Wolverines football.
David began attending the Santa Fe Friends Meeting in 1985 and transferred his membership from Ann Arbor in 1995. He served the Meeting on many committees and in many capacities, including as a longtime member of the Future Planning and Building and Grounds committees, and as board president of the Meeting’s corporation. As the Meeting’s archivist, he oversaw the preservation and digitization of the Meeting’s records. He had a special concern for understanding and communicating the Meeting’s history and was particularly committed to the care of its historic meetinghouse on Santa Fe’s Canyon Road. He unfailingly brought deep knowledge, thoughtful reflection, and Light to the Meeting’s most challenging considerations.
David was preceded in death by his parents and by his brother, Danny Lee Giltrow, D.D.S. He is survived by his wife, Peggy Medina Giltrow; sister-in-law Careen Giltrow of Ann Arbor, Michigan; nephew Gregory Giltrow of Ann Arbor; nieces Carrie (Bill) Kaeter of Sequim, Washington, and Amy (Scott) Chimner of Gregory, Michigan; and a number of great and great-great nephews and nieces.