I just found out from Eric Nelson’s wife that he had died nine months ago. She saw a post of mine on Eric’s Facebook page and was reminded to contact me.
You can see from Eric’s obituary that he was a talented artist, esteemed professor and family man.
When I first met him, we were both in Vietnam, and he was more of a free spirit. The Army actually found a job for Eric that he was good at. As an artist, he became an illustrator for a
psychological warfare outfit that prepared leaflets to be dropped on Viet Cong or North Vietnamese positions, intended to affect morale and sow discontent. Untold billions of these leaflets were distributed,
but no one knows if they were effective or not. It was, however, a good gig for Eric.
In true Army fashion, the production of the leaflets was complicated. They were designed in Saigon, flown to New York for printing, and flown back to Vietnam for distribution from planes and
helicopters. When Eric’s group packed the artwork for secure military shipment to New York, they needed to protect it from damage in transit. The solution was a readily available, locally sourced and inexpensive vegetative packing material – cannabis. When
the printed leaflets returned, they were often accompanied by an appreciative tip.
Eric was a bit of a rogue, and as his departure date drew near, he became obsessed with meeting the
“Coconut Monk,” a holy man based on an island (Con Phung) in the Mekong River between Ben Tre
and My Tho. Ong Dao Dua, the monk, meditated on the island for three years during which time he ate nothing but coconuts. He headed his own sect, which was a bizarre mix of Christianity and Buddhism. About two weeks before his discharge, Eric asked his commanding
officer for permission to make a trip to Con Phung. Because it was considered unsecure and dangerous, permission was denied.
Eric went anyway, and when he returned, he was busted to the lowest possible rank before leaving for home and leaving the Army, with a dubious reputation but with an honorable discharge.
Eric told me the monk had two telephones flanking his seat, one white and the other black. When Eric asked what they were for, the monk responded, “One is a direct line to Ho Chi Minh, and the other a direct line to Richard Nixon.” He said he was in the process
of brokering a peace agreement.
Figure 1 – The Coconut Monk
Figure 2 – Tom Butt with Eric Nelson and Al Tolbert, Saigon 1969
Figure 3 – Eric Nelson and Tom Butt in Saigon, 1969
Eric G. Nelson
Obituary
Middlebury
CollegeUniversity of Iowa
Eric Nelson Obituary
Obituary published on Legacy.com by Sanderson Funeral Service – Middlebury on Jun. 27, 2025.
Eric Nelson, Artist, Fly Fisherman, Grandpa
Eric Nelson,79, was born in Aurora, Illinois, on October 7, 1945. He died peacefully at home, with his wife and daughter by his side, on Friday, June 20, 2025, after a long struggle with osteoarthritis and lung cancer. Eric grew up wandering and exploring the
woods and fields of Illinois farm country. He was fascinated by nature: animals, birds, trees, plants, flowers, insects, everything wild fascinated him. He once climbed a tree and took a baby squirrel home to raise. He raised a baby crow that enjoyed riding
around on his dog’s back. His interest in art began at this young age as he experimented with different media: pencil, pastel, watercolor, and paint. Things in nature and scenes of the farmland he loved were nearly always the subjects of the art he created
in his early years.
Although his fascination with art and nature took hold early and continued throughout his life, other things caught his interest as well. During high school he worked for a Swedish grocery store where he often delivered groceries to elderly Swedish ladies who
enjoyed getting "secret" deliveries of snuff. He was asked to keep this a secret, a fact that amused him greatly! Although humorous, this may have been the beginning of his interest in other cultures! During college he spent summers working for the railroad.
One summer his job required him to disassemble old coal-fired steam engines using welding tools, perhaps influencing his later sculptures made of scrap metal.
He began college as a math major in order to please his dad but after taking a course that had something to do with "finite vector spaces" he followed his heart and became an art major. He received his MFA in Sculpture from the University of Iowa in 1974. Following
graduation, he maintained the Art Studio at Indiana State University Evansville for 2 years, then taught sculpture there until being hired by Middlebury College to teach sculpture and design. He and his wife moved to Vermont in 1978 and never looked back.
His daughter, Leah, was born in Middlebury in 1982. He received tenure and continued teaching and showing his art (both sculpture and photographs) until he retired.
His art was exhibited in both one person and group shows in galleries around the U.S. (New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Vermont) as well as at the Moulin a Nef, Auvillar, France.
His piece "Three Hundred Sixty Five: An Idea and the Reality" was, perhaps, his most challenging as well as his most delightful. His idea was to create a piece of sculpture every day for one year. Each piece was carved out of a piece of wood about 4 inches
high that stood on its own small platform attached to a wall. His favorite way to exhibit it was to have the pieces mounted at eye-level encircling a gallery so people could walk along and see each piece easily. Although the plan was to finish it in one year,
in reality it took 8 years to complete!
In addition to art, Eric played tennis and was an ardent fly fisherman. He spent many happy hours fishing in favorite Vermont rivers as well as several of the big rivers out West. He and his wife and daughter (when she was young) enjoyed travelling. They visited
many of the States in the U.S. as well as many countries in Europe. But his favorite moments were spent with his grandsons, Alden and Andrew, playing games, reading books, teaching them to fish, building things with them and being silly together.
He will be greatly missed by his wife of 53 years, Dottie Nelson of Middlebury, daughter and son-in-law, Leah and Christopher Green and grandsons Alden and Andrew of Centerville, MA, brother and sister-in-law, Jeff and Gina Nelson and niece, Sarah Beth, of
St. Paul, MN, nephews, Dan, Phil and Kent Bateman and their families, of Illinois and cousins, Tracy and Rick Brown and George and John Sensor. He will also be greatly missed by his "Pizza Night Family", a group of friends in Middlebury who have gotten together
every Friday night for over 40 years!
A celebration of Eric’s life will be held on Saturday, August 2, 2025, at the Champlain Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, 2 Duane Ct, Middlebury, VT starting at 1:00pm.
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