Will Durant

He met his future wife, Chaya (Ida) Kaufman, at the Ferrer Modern School in New York City, where he served as the principal as well as a teacher and Ida was one of his students.

They fell in love and later got married on October 31, 1913. Ida was only 15 years old at the time of their marriage and he later nicknamed her ‘Ariel’. They were blessed with a daughter, Ethel and later adopted a son, Louis.

He died on November 7, 1981 in Los Angeles, California, upon hearing the news of his wife’s death, who had died two weeks earlier. The couple was buried at the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.

He was born on November 5, 1885, in North Adams, Massachusetts, to Joseph Durant and Mary Allard. His parents were of French-Canadian origin and had been a part of the Quebec emigration to the United States.

In 1900, he received education from Jesuits from the St. Peter's Preparatory School and later attended the Saint Peter's College in Jersey City, New Jersey. He completed his graduation in 1907.

After graduation, he became a reporter and wrote several articles on sexual criminals for Arthur Brisbane's ‘New York Evening Journal’.

In 1907, he was appointed a teacher of Latin, French, English and geometry at Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey.

In 1911, he became the principal of Ferrer Modern School where he also served as the teacher. There he fell in love with one of his students, a girl 13 years younger than him, and later married her. In 1913, he resigned from the post and began lecturing in a Presbyterian church for a few dollars to support his family.

In 1917, he published his first book titled ‘Philosophy and the Social Problem’ while working as an instructor at the Columbia University. It discussed the idea that philosophy had not grown because it avoided the actual problems of society.

In 1926, he published ‘The Story of Philosophy’ which eventually became a bestseller and the couple was finally able to gain financial stability.

His most significant contribution is ‘The Story of Civilization’, written in collaboration with his wife. It is regarded as the most successful historiographical series in history. It is an 11 volume set of books covering Western history and was written over a span of four decades. Some of its volumes are ‘Our Oriental Heritage’ (1935),‘The Age of Faith’ (1950), ‘The Renaissance’ (1953),‘The Age of Reason Begins’ (1961),‘The Age of Voltaire’ (1965) and ‘The Age of Napoleon’ (1975).