Former Stanford history professor George Knoles dies at 107

Theodore Roosevelt was president of the United States when George Knoles was born. Nineteen presidents later, on Aug. 27, the Stanford history professor died, having seen a century of history firsthand.

He was 107, the oldest resident of the Channing House, a retirement home in Palo Alto. He was alive when the Titanic sank, and lived to see America's first black president be elected many decades later.

Knoles taught American social and intellectual history at Stanford from 1935 until his retirement in 1972 and served as chairman of the History Department his last 10 years. He was the Margaret Byrne Professor of American History, Emeritus.

He loved to travel, and had a special fondness for Japan, where he worked to build ties to Japanese scholars after World War II.

Knoles was involved with the Stanford Historical Society, and donated his papers to the Stanford University Libraries' Department of Special Collections and University Archives. His books include The Jazz Age Revisited.

Knoles was born on Feb. 20, 1907, in Los Angeles, one of eight children. When he was 13, the family moved to San Jose, where his father became president of the University of the Pacific, now in Stockton.

He graduated from the University of the Pacific and then received his PhD in history from Stanford in 1939.  He married Amandalee Barker, a University of the Pacific student, in 1930. She died in 1994, and had been the president of the Stanford Faculty Women's Club.

A memorial service for Knoles will be held at 10:30 a.m. on Oct. 25 at the First Methodist Church, 625 Hamilton Ave. in Palo Alto....