Year of birth of Craige Schensted For a paper I am writing related to the history of combinatorics, I am
looking for the year of birth of Craige Eugene
Schensted, the eponym for the
Schensted correspondence. According to this
site, a Craige Eugene Schensted was born in 1924 and is now
deceased. However, I haven't seen any other indication that the Craige
Schensted in whom I am interested is deceased. Moreover, I once found
a website with a photo of an 18-year old Craige Schensted in 1946,
which would mean that he was born in 1927 or 1928. I am no longer able
to find this website.
 A: This may be more than you wanted to know about Craige Schensted aka Ea Ea.
Obituary Information for Ea
Ea Ea, (the adopted name of Craige Val Eugene Shensted) was born in Mayville, ND, April 12, 1927, son of Roy and Helen Chance Shensted. He completed high school early at the age of 17, enlisted in the US Army and achieved the highest intelligence score ever recorded to that time. Because of his youth, he attended college until he turned 18 and then was enrolled in active military service. Discharged shortly after the conclusion of WW 2, he attended the University of Minnesota, receiving a BS in Applied Mathematics.  He and Irene _____  were married after graduation.
During their employment at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, Craige worked as a mathematical researcher in the Radio Astronomy Laboratory and invented forms of mathematics currently in use.  He collaborated with Charles Titus, another mathematics faculty member, in creating strategy games “Y” “Mudcrack Y” and "Star" which were highly praised in Games magazine and are still available  here:  http://gamepuzzles.com/abstract.htm
With a desire to leave a small footprint, in Ann Arbor the Schensteds lived simply and eventually car-free.  Shortly after Craige’s retirement at age forty-four, they bought a home on Peaks Island, off Portland, ME  where they lived also car-free for many years.  Craige’s interests broadened to include kayaking on Casco Bay, improvisational drumming, chanting, dancing and in-depth reading and computer research especially in areas including nutrition, physics, architecture, and psychology.
The Schensteds eventually divorced and during his subsequent fifteen-year relationship and collaboration with with mind-body practitioner Mariah Williams from Lunenburg, Massachusetts and later Liberty, Maine, Craige explored the commonalities between contemporary physics and the energy work Mariah practiced. He theorized that what many practitioners call human energy fields are instead fields of probability in which perceived realities may be accessed by intuition and potentially influenced by intention.
Also, during that time, after reading the Descent to the Goddess, about the myth of Inanna, Mariah described the similarities between the Babylonian god Enki, later the Sumerian god Ea, and Craige chose to change his name to Ea.
In 2008, after an injury on Peaks Island, Mariah moved Ea to an apartment overlooking Passagassawaukeag Bay in Belfast, Maine  and he and Mariah maintained a close friendship until his death in hospice on January 22.
You may find the Game/Puzzles.com bio of interest: http://www.gamepuzzles.com/ea-star.htm
I am Mariah Williams and may be reached via LibertyHealingArts.com
A: Craige Eugene Schensted was born on April 12, 1927, in Mayfield, North Dakota, according to the 1940-1947 US Draft Card on ancestry.com.
(I have a scan of the draft card, you can email me for a copy, not sure if posting it here is legit.)
