"Through observing the silent language (of play) we can understand children's attitudes toward work, play and learning."

Edward T. Hall, The Silent Language


Ellen Biderman, a founder of the Santa Fe Children's Museum, chose that quote from Hall's book for the welcoming wall at the museum because, "It speaks to what we're not doing with children today. Today we're just testing them," she said.

Ned Hall, who died Monday in Santa Fe, knew the value of observation. He was an anthropologist who studied nonverbal communication and intercultural relations and was the author of seven books.

When Biderman was preparing a speech about kids once, she told Hall that she wasn't sure what to say. He drew her to the stairs at the museum and said. "You tell me what you see and you'll know what to say," he advised.

Hall is a local boy who made good. Born in Webster Groves, Mo., his family moved to Santa Fe in 1927 to a house on Cerrillos Road. He graduated from Santa Fe High School in 1930, then earned a degree in anthropology from the University of Denver in 1936 and a master's degree in anthropology from the University of Arizona in 1938. In between he lived and worked with the Navajo and Hopi for a number of years.

After earning his doctorate degree from Columbia University in 1942, Hall joined the Army and commanded an African American regiment in Europe and the Pacific from 1942 to 1946. In the 1950s he was director of the U.S. State Department's Foreign Service Institute program that prepared diplomats to work in different cultures. He has taught at the University of Denver, Bennington College, the Harvard Business School and Northwestern University, among other places.

"He loved Santa Fe and he used to bring New Mexico with him wherever we were," said his son, Eric R. Hall, an Albuquerque attorney. When the family lived in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, Hall liked to dig a hole in the grass, fill a native clay pot with beans, light some coals and bury the pot over night to cook.

Eric Hall said his father loved to make people aware of the unconscious processes that affect people's perceptions and help them figure out why others perceive things differently than they do. He also excelled in making tricky things understandable by simplifying them. "He always had the motor running about something," Eric Hall said.

Gladys Levis-Pilz, a former teaching assistant, said Hall's classes at Northwestern were so popular, "I had to beat students off with a stick." Instead of assigning them to read hundreds of pages of textbooks, he would ask them to get in touch with their senses by, for example, keeping a diary on their reactions to heat and cold.

Levis-Pilz helped him with a federal research project in New Mexico in which her assignment was to live in a Hispanic community in Northern New Mexico (Costilla) and observe how Hispanic Americans and Anglo Americans approached problem-solving differently. The idea was to learn how those differences get in the way of understanding across cultures.

"He would give me directions like, 'I don't want you to direct the activity at all. I want you to be an observer,' " she said.

Levis-Pilz later worked at The University of New Mexico teaching future teachers and counselors to understand what goes on in classrooms, and "all came from his paradigm," she said.

The Society for Intercultural Education Training and Research, has built on his research, she said.

Laughlin Barker and his wife, Rene, were good friends and neighbors of the Halls. "We thought very highly of him," Rene Barker said. "It was always such a treat to visit with him. He and Laughlin shared Santa Fe history."

Former hiking companion Stan Noyes said that traveling with Hall was "like a postgraduate course in anthropology." "He was one of the brilliant men I've ever known. I learned a lot from him — by example and by what he said," Noyes said.

Hall's second wife, Karin Bergh,a family friend for decades, said her husband's work on nonverbal communication was groundbreaking but today is accepted in the world of anthropology.

Bergh, who is half Swedish, and also grew up in Santa Fe, said she and Hall often stayed up nights discussing their mutual fascination with German behavior. "I just loved him a lot and am going miss him a lot."

In addition to his wife and son, Hall is survived by a grandson, Edward T. Hall III. A daughter is deceased. Hall's first wife, Mildred Reed Hall, died in 1994.

Plans for a memorial service in August are pending.

Contact Anne Constable at 986-3022 or aconstable@sfnewmexican.com.