Darwin Francis (“Dart”) Tichenor was born in Prairie du Chien on March 4, 1943 and died May 6, 2026.
His was not a life of extraordinary accomplishments, but perhaps one of extraordinary ideas. And these ideas formed the way he lived his life and engaged the world and the people he met. His greatest joy was in sharing these ideas and the paths to understanding with others.
He grew up between the Mississippi bottomlands and the overlooking bluffs in Prairie du Chien. His childhood was spent wandering and exploring these highlands and lowlands. The activities of his youth were hunting, trapping and fishing, mixed with a growing wonder of the mysteries of nature.
He graduated from Prairie du Chien High School in 1961, and attended Wisconsin State University – Platteville for one year before enlisting in the US Air Force in 1962. After leaving the U.S. Air Force in 1966, he attended The University of Wisconsin – Madison, receiving a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and a master’s degree in vocational rehabilitation counseling.
Throughout his adult life he strove to understand the meaning of it all through serious engagement of science, philosophy, spirituality, and meditative disciplines. The natural world provided continuing inspiration and perspective. The study of the meaning and nature of life became a lifelong pursuit. His work in human services stemmed largely from his quest to understand the human world and its relationship to the ideas it generated. He lived not only the life of experience in the world, but also the life of experiencing the joy of ideas about the world.
He was gifted with a beloved wife, Deborah, and two beautiful children, Elizabeth and Jonathan. The joys and travails of growing up with them provided the deepest and most rewarding experiences of his life. He is forever grateful.
He is survived by his former wife Deborah Darby, daughter Elizabeth “Beth” Tichenor, Jonathan (Sarah) Tichenor, and granddaughters Olive and Laney Tichenor.
Darwin was preceded in death by his parents, Austin and Marie Tichenor, and siblings Austin, Jr., Doris Jean, Donald, Kenneth and Richard Tichenor. He is survived by James L. Tichenor, nieces and nephews.
Epitaph: “It ain’t over yet.” Reflecting his humor and pointing out, that although his life has ended, if someone is reading the epitaph, the Chain of Life continues with them, and perhaps, with him.
In his 70’s he wrote a simple poem to express his experience of life:
Life
Life, sweet life, what joys you have given me!
From imponderable birth to gentle retreat of aging,
I have lived!
Is it possible to know the meaning of all this, or even count the infinity of experiences cast in its many guises?
Even its most simple moments, brought through body to thought and emotion,
evoke such bittersweet recall and richness sublime.
If there be love, it is just this connection to those experiences, and the good and gentle people and things which populate them.
And what of those terrors and tribulations?
They are just these same experiences, masquerading as phantoms of the mind, until the journey of life unmasks them.
Then all becomes acceptance and joy as the totality of living and having lived coalesces and is touched with every breath.
