Had Marvin Creamer not been a geographer, he very likely would not have lived to be 104.
Professor Creamer, who died at that age on Wednesday, taught geography for many years at Glassboro State College, now Rowan University, in Glassboro, N.J.
His expertise helped him become a history-making mariner, the first recorded person to sail round the world without navigational instruments. His 30,000-mile odyssey, in a 36-foot cutter with a small crew, made headlines worldwide on its completion in 1984.
“I was considered to be crazy or stupid or just out of it,” Professor Creamer said in a 2015 interview with Rowan University. “When I took off there were two people who believed I would come back.”
One was his wife Blanche. The other, despite the welter of naysayers, was Professor Creamer himself.
