Roger R. Hinchliffe ’66 died on January 21, 2022, in Portland, Maine

(The following was provided by the Portland Press Herald on January 25, 2022)

Roger Redman Hinchliffe ’66

PORTLAND – Roger Redman Hinchliffe passed away peacefully on Jan. 21, 2022, after a brief illness and progressive chapters of dementia.

Roger Redman Hinchliffe a native of Springfield, Vt., and Lexington, Mass., was born on December 27, 1944, to Mary Elizabeth and John Henry Hinchliffe, Jr.

Roger graduated from Lexington High School in 1964, Bowdoin College in 1966, and Cornell University in 1968, and during the Vietnam War he served in the Peace Corps in Colombia where he became fluent in Spanish.

He moved to Stockholm, Sweden, where he lived for thirty years. After a brief chapter in corporate world, he followed his passions in music and language. Roger worked for Swedish television as a translator and subtitling films. He later conceived and recorded two albums of his translations: “Sweden’s Greatest” and “Swedes On Love,” sharing the pearls of Taube, Ferlin, Vreeswijk, Ramel, Lundell, Wiehe, and others with the English-speaking world.

In Sweden he met his wife, a Swedish-American from Caribou, Maine, who was working in Stockholm. They returned to the USA with their daughter, Holly, and resettled in Portland, Maine.

Roger was “a man of his words” and readily shared his passion with others, most recently as “Señor H”. He was as proud to lead the performances of Portland-area school children as he was once to tour with Pete Seeger, Tom Paxton, Buffy Sainte-Marie, Arturo Sandoval, Silvio Rodríguez, and Irakere. Roger was a talented baritone and performed throughout Sweden and Europe with his beloved Mäster Olofs Choir and with the Sweden-Cuba song group Cantalucha. It was with an a cappella group, The Sherwoods, with whom he formed lifelong friendships.

He was predeceased by his brothers John Henry Hinchliffe III and Richard Greeley Hinchliffe.

Roger is survived by his wife of twenty-six years, Karen Soderberg Hinchliffe; their daughter, Holly Soderberg Hinchliffe, their son, Dana Redman Hinchliffe of Portland, and Roger’s daughter, Kim Bohman Hinchliffe of Gamleby Sweden; and his sister, Sally MacMillan of North Carolina.