Charles Dent Bostick

Gainesville native Charles Dent Bostick, Dean Emeritus and Professor of Law Emeritus at Vanderbilt University Law School, whose former students include some of the most distinguished attorneys and jurists at work today, died on January 12 at his Nashville area home after a long illness. He was 91.

Born and raised in Gainesville, and a graduate of Gainesville High School, Dean Bostick earned his undergraduate and law degrees at Mercer University before settling down to private practice here. But he would soon follow the siren song of academia and, in 1966, took the unexpected step of leaving an assured career as a young partner to become Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Florida. Two years later, moving his young family to an historic home in downtown Franklin, Tenn., he became Associate Professor of Law at Vanderbilt. He was named Professor of Law in 1971 and went on to serve as the school’s Associate Dean and Director of Admissions. In 1980 he was named Dean of the Law School and led the school in that role until 1985, when he left to spend a year as visiting Professor of Law at the University of Leeds in England. Returning to Vanderbilt, he resumed teaching until his retirement in 1992. His academic interests were Property and Future Interests.

While head of the school, Dean Bostick entertained two justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, on separate occasions. Sandra Day O’Connor’s visit was to dedicate the Alyne Queener Massey Law Library, part of Dean Bostick’s significant expansion efforts for the original building. Former Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist dined in his Nashville home. He also was presented, while in Leeds, to the Duchess of Kent, Katharine Worsley, wife of the late Queen’s cousin, Edward.

Earlier, in the 1950s, Dean Bostick had served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy. And it was during those years that he first visited Europe and the Mediterranean, further encouraging his lifelong passion for history and culture. Well read to the point of intimidation, while also wearing it lightly (he was seldom seen with a book in his hand), he enjoyed peppering his law lectures and the most casual daily exchanges with a colorful range of references. His exacting memory of personalities, dates, and events, especially from the rich history of his beloved England, was phenomenal. He greatly loved music, particularly the choral works of Bach, Faure, and Brahms, and he displayed his bass-baritone in choirs at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Franklin and later at St. George’s Episcopal Church in Nashville, where he was a longtime member. Dean Bostick also loved the historically rich Georgia coast and kept a family getaway on Saint Simons Island for many years.

But it was probably his Savile Row style of dress, that speech and manner reflecting earlier, now fading Southern custom, or his sharp-edged wit turning out countless anecdotes, that his former students, colleagues, and friends will most remember. Dean Bostick’s repertoire as public speaker routinely praised the virtues of brevity (which he did not reliably observe himself). For instance, he often told a story about the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, who once, at a literary dinner, was assigned a topic which he was challenged, on the spot, to address. The note he was handed read “sex.” Shaw rose, bowed to the audience, and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure.” Another favorite, closer to home, involved a certain prosecutor years ago here in Gainesville. The man was in court, addressing the jury, when someone in a car parked in the alley just outside the courtroom began honking his horn. The prosecutor leaned out the window and asked him to stop. He did not. The prosecutor then climbed through the window, beat the man up, climbed back inside, and concluded his speech. Then he dutifully went downstairs to swear out a warrant for his own arrest for assault and battery.

In a 1990 letter to his sister, recently diagnosed with cancer, Dean Bostick wrote, “We all deal with mortality, whether sooner or later. The time we cannot know, but the certainty of it we can and do know. As I grow older, I suppose in a way I have become more fatalistic. But I really do believe that God’s will is more than a notion, and that it will be that force and nothing else that will work things out.”

Dean Bostick was preceded in death by his sister, Sara Bostick Rew, a Gainesville native. He is survived by his wife of 66 years, Susan Oliver Bostick, also formerly of Gainesville; daughter Susan Bostick Fassnacht (Jo), of Ranger, Ga.; son Alan Dent Bostick (Katherine), of Nashville; grandchildren Cabell Fassnacht, of Washington, D.C.; Will Fassnacht (Katelynn), of Adairsville, Ga.; Camille Bostick, Kate Bostick and Rawson Bostick, all of Nashville.

A private Service of the Burial of the Dead will be held at St George's Episcopal Church, followed by interment in the Columbarium. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that memorials be made to Vanderbilt University Law School (Bostick Dean’s Award for Extraordinary Staff Service), St. George’s Episcopal Church, and Mercer University’s Walter F. George School of Law.