In his personal memoir, Dance of a Fallen Monk, George Fowler describes a person he met when Fowler was a late teenager who had an enormous influence on his personal development and his life. This person, whom Fowler calls Adeodatus Nikos, is a young man, not much older than Fowler, who was immensely well-read, particularly in matters spiritual and religious. Nikos is an engineer assigned to work for several months in Conrad, the boondocks town in Montana where Fowler is at high school, and they quickly become fast friends. Fowler is devastated when his friend is killed in a car accident soon after leaving the town.

Interested to know more, I searched on Nikos’ name but found nada. I soon realised his name may be a pseudonym, particularly as Adeodatus could be translated as “Gift of God”. Fowler says the death happened in June 1946. There were 683 recorded deaths in Montana in 1946, of whom just 4 were of people born between 1918-1922 (inclusive). One possible candidate is Mr Pedro Santos, born in Texas on 16 January 1921, and aged 25 when he died on 25 June 1946, although he did not die in car accident and was not an engineer. May he rest in peace. The name “Pedro Santos”, of course, would translate as “Saint Peter”. Fowler says that Nikos had two older twin brothers, both of whom were already married when Fowler met Nikos.

Meanwhile, I recalled that John Milton’s close teenage friend was named Charles Diodati (c.1608-1638), which surname also translates as “Gift of God”. Diodati also died young, when Milton was traveling abroad. Upon learning of his friend’s death from Diodati’s uncle in Geneva, Milton wrote a lament, Epitaphium Damonis, published in 1645. I wonder if Fowler knew about Diodati when he came to write about his own friend.

This page previously displayed an image showing Villa Diodati on Lake Geneva, built originally for a relative of Charles Diodati. Byron and friends rented this house in the summer of 1816.