Jack McDermott
American Historian
1935-2016
Inspired by the complex heroes and storied events of the Old West, historian Jack McDermott of Rapid City wrote more than 15 books during an influential 50-year career as a public servant, historic preservationist, and tourism consultant while assembling one of the nation’s largest private research archives focused on the Indian Wars.
John Dishon “Jack” McDermott was born on December 5, 1935, in the prairie town of Redfield, South Dakota, to Alice Dawson McDermott, a homemaker and avid reader of mystery novels, and Thomas Valentine McDermott, a small-business owner and musician. Growing up during years inflected by the Second World War, Jack and his younger brother, Dick, learned to hunt ringnecked pheasants in cornfields at the edge of town, attended Sunday suppers where relatives sang and fiddled Irish tunes, and climbed ladders at their father’s Tom Thumb general store to fill candy orders for customers.
A skilled athlete, Jack excelled in four sports for the Redfield High School Golden Pheasants throughout the early 1950s — as a middle-distance runner in track; first baseman and cleanup hitter in baseball; power forward in basketball; and crafty southpaw quarterback. When sidelined with a back injury during his senior football season, Jack began reading popular histories that narrated conflicts associated with the settlement of the American West. He subsequently earned a B.A. in History from the University of South Dakota. While at the University, Jack met Joan Vellenga, a future English teacher and community activist and leader who had grown up not far from Redfield in the town of Sisseton. They married in 1957, shortly after graduation. Their three children are Elizabeth, born in 1964; John Dishon, Jr., born in 1966; and Jim, born in 1969.
Throughout his life, Jack’s fascination with Old West history informed his career path, reading obsesssions, and ongoing visits to libraries, bookstores, museums, and historic sites. After earning an M.A. in History from the University of Wisconsin, where he studied with Merle Curti, a leading social historian of frontier culture, Jack became a Park Ranger for the National Park Service (NPS) beginning in 1960. In this role, he served as a seasonal at Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, the site of Custer’s Last Stand; as an interpretive historian at Fort Laramie National Historic Site; and in management and communications positions for the NPS Division of Policy Analysis and Division of History at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. He later helped shape America’s approach to documenting and saving cultural treasures, including historically significant neighborhoods and buildings, as chief negotiator of National Historic Preservation Act compliance proceedings for the President’s Advisory Council on Historic Preservation.
Having settled in suburban Arlington, Virginia, with Joan and their three children, Jack was always generous in sharing with his family his Irish wit, sports prowess, delight in intellectual pursuits, and interests in Western novels, gardening, and the Washington Redskins. An enthusiastic collector, he ultimately acquired more than 7,000 books. In rural West Virginia at the family’s cabin, which he named “Wechote” (a Lakota word for “camp”), Jack led epic rambles through the woods, participated in upland bird hunts, and told stories around the campfire.
To create his Indian Wars archive, which Black Hills State University now manages, Jack collected copies of governmental records, contemporary newspaper accounts, and handwritten artifacts by traveling to local libraries all over the United States and spending hours researching Red Cloud, Custer, and other pivotal figures at the National Archives and the Library of Congress. The Library’s Main Reading Room was often a home away from home for Jack as he deeply explored the nineteenth-century American history holdings and curated lists of documents he hoped to read and archive for his own use and for the benefit of other historians.
While completing NPS projects that showcased his research and writing abilities, including National Register of Historic Places studies of the residences of Ernest Hemingway, Thomas Wolfe, and other American writers, Jack also, in his spare time, wrote his first book. Published in 1978, Forlorn Hope remains a definitive account of the Nez Perce War involving Chief Joseph. He would go on to write many other works of history, including Circle of Fire: The Indian War of 1865, A Guide to the Indian Wars of the West, and the two-volume Red Cloud’s War: The Bozeman Trail, 1866-1868. His books bring together well-sourced historical facts, the clearest of prose styles, and an appreciation for the surreal and colorful in human affairs to make Old West military clashes, the Black Hills gold rush, and other American stories come fully alive. Through his work as a historian Jack maintained decades-long friendships and intellectual collaborations with other scholars from many different walks of life.
After his 1986 retirement from federal service, Jack appeared on PBS and the History Channel as a consulting historian and enjoyed giving talks at Mt. Rushmore and other historic sites while sharing his love of history as a tour guide with Rapid City-based Great American Tour Company. He and his second wife, Sharon Issler McDermott, traveled extensively for business and pleasure. Prior to his death, Jack was happily immersed in writing three new books, including a social history of the frontier soldier.
Jack is survived by his wife, Sharon, of Rapid City; stepdaughter Sarah “Si” Issler (Dave Kent), of Rapid City; daughter Elizabeth (TomMostowy) of Washington, D.C.; son John (Anne), of Silver Spring, Maryland; son Jim (Liz), of Vienna, Virginia; former wife Joan, of Arlington, Virginia; eight nieces and nephews; and eight grandchildren.
A celebration of Jack’s life will be held at a later time. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to the Northern Plains Resource Council (220 S. 27th St., Suite A, Billings MT 59101; ) or the Fort Laramie Historical Association (965 Gray Rocks Road, Fort Laramie WY 82212; ).