Author: Randi Alexandra Plake

David Rouge ’65 passed away on April 1, 2019. At Wesleyan, David majored in government. He then earned a master’s degree in from Delta College. He was 75.

Charles W. Denny III ’58 passed away on Nov. 13, 2018. A full obituary can be found here.

Kenneth E. Schomaker ’57 passed away on March 1, 2019. A full obituary can be found here.

Joel D. Finegan ’54 passed away on Sept. 11, 2018. A full obituary can be found here.

Douglas B. Stuart ’40 passed away on Feb. 5, 2019 at the age of 102. A full obituary can be found here.

Joseph C. Miller ’61, 79, succumbed to an aggressive cancer on March 12, 2019. He died at the Center for Acute Hospice Care, surrounded by his wife, Mary Catherine Wimer, and two of his children: Julia Miller and Calder Miller.  He is also survived by his son John Miller, and was preceded in death by his daughter, Laura Miller.  Among his other surviving family are his brother and sister in law, James and Marlene Miller and their family, and his ex-wife, Janet Miller, as well as a large extended Calder family.

Joe was an internationally esteemed, Professor emeritusat the University of Virginia, where he held the T. Cary Johnson Jr. Chair in the History Department.  During the forty six years that he worked at the University, he turned down other positions, including an invitation to join the History faculty at Harvard.  He also always reminded people that he had earned a prior MBA, which influenced his approach to historical thinking, as did additional study in Anthropology.

Known as a giant in the field of early African history and the world history of slavery, his work focused on the slave trade and enslavement, especially across the South Atlantic.  Among the many honors he achieved during his academic career, he was most proud of winning the Herskovits Prize given by the African Studies Association for his book, Way of Death, and of receiving a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship which resulted in the publication of The Problem of Slavery as History.

The highlight of his career occurred this past fall, after retirement, with two extremely special events.  First, he was inducted into the 2018 class of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, an exceptionally notable achievement recognizing his groundbreaking work over a long career.  Second a colloquium in his honor, “Africa in Global History,” was organized by his former students, colleagues, and friends at the Harvard Center for African Studies.  During that day it was abundantly clear how significant Joe’s influence had been.

In addition to his scholarship, Joe also served in many administrative positions, including Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Virginia and as President of both the African Studies Association and the American Historical Association.

However, these facts about Joe do not begin to convey the depth of love and admiration that people had for him.  So, some quotes from tributes pouring in from all over the world might better capture who Joe was in life.

“Your mentorship has been one of the great gifts in my life—which has been fundamentally reshaped by our relationship. My world is bigger, my imagination richer, and my thoughts more interesting because of you. Plus, it is quite literally because of you that I know how to write.”

“Joe had an infectious love of teaching and a passion for delving into history’s intellectual complexities. He taught me a working theory of history and modeled untiring intellectual curiosity and openness to the unconventional.”

“I have never met a scholar so intelligent, humble, and generous when dealing with both senior scholars and graduate students.”

“Joe was a rare academic who didn’t care at all where you came from, what you looked like, didn’t care for those normative signs of prestige and intellectual authority that so many in academia focus on. All he cared about were ideas and intellect, and truly the person and their potential as a scholar and a person.”

“He was a dear, dear friend to me: a passionate and compassionate, generous, kind, thoughtful man; an avid adventurer, and someone I could always count on for a word of encouragement, a smile, and lively, smart conversation.”

It seems fitting to close with a poem by Raymond Carver that Joe could embrace:

Late Fragment

And did you get what

you wanted from this life, even so?

I did.

And what did you want?

To call myself beloved, to feel myself

beloved on the earth.

A Celebration of Life will be held in early summer when a memorial scholarship fund will be announced.

We thank Joseph’s friend Robert Palmeri ’61 for this heartfelt tribute.

Lawrence C. Leopold ’65 passed away on Feb. 14, 2017. According to Larry’s son David, Larry separated from David’s mother Bonnie in 1999 and lived alone after David went off to college (UC Santa Cruz) in 2004. He retired from Merrill Lynch around 2007 and remained active in a local veterans group and in his synagogue. By mid-2016, he was showing signs of dementia and physical deterioration (had difficulty walking) and was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. He went eventually to live in a memory care facility in Beverly Hills where he died on Feb 14, 2017.

In addition to his son, David, Larry is survived by his sister, Dene.  He was predeceased by his brother, Andy. David said that towards the end his father was surprisingly calm and expressed contentment with his life. At Larry’s request, his remains were scattered in the Monterey Bay, a gesture reflecting his lifelong love for scuba diving and the ocean.

We thank Larry’s friend Hugh Wilson ’65 for this information.

Vale Wayne B. Glazier ’61 Wayne passed away on July 14, 2018, after a prolonged and very brave battle with cancer.

He was always proud of his Wesleyan connections and kept in contact with Jim Stewart his fraternity brother throughout the years, sharing holidays in the States, Australia, and around the world, including a house building project in Cambodia.

Wayne was born in Massachussetts, and both his parents were university lecturers at various times. He earned a BA from Wesleyan and scholarship to Harvard where he graduated with an MBA. Although he has family dating back to the Pilgrim Fathers, he only worked post-graduately in the States for one year. He had a desire for travel and worked as an international auditor for Caltex Petroleum Corp, reviewing operations in Europe, Africa, Middle East Asia, and Australia from late 1963 to the late 1960s. He returned to work in the U.S. as financial advisor in Caltex’s Head Office in U.S. This was the last year he lived in the U.S.

Eager to return overseas, he joined Sterling Drug International as Asia Pacific financial controller, based alternatively in Tokyo and Manila. By 1977 he had married an Australian and had three children. At that point they decided to return to settle in Australia. However, they separated and divorced. Six years later he met and married another Australian. He had a blended family of six children. That family has now grown and includes partners and seven grandchildren. Two of the families live overseas, one in Ireland and the other in Japan.

In Sydney, Wayne joined Esso Australia’s accounting management and passed the Australian CPA exams and became qualified as a Chartered Practising Accountant and Fellow of the CPA. He held several positions in Esso and was eventually appointed to a role in tax management. He then returned to university studies in his 50s for a Masters in Taxation (with High Distinction of course).

When Esso moved their main office to Melbourne in the early 1990s, our decision was made to stay in Sydney, so Wayne took early retirement. He joined CCH, a legal publisher as a taxation writer and editor of the annual Australian Tax Guide. He did not retire until 2008, when diagnosed with an advanced form of prostate cancer. Surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, multiple drug trials, and eventually a metatastic brain tumour, left him very weak and fatigued. Wayne battled for nearly 10 years, before finally succumbing in July 2018.

Wayne and wife Jan enjoyed 34 years of marriage and were able to share some great travels including Alaska, Lofoten Islands (Norway), France, Ireland, UK, and his bucket list trip to go fishing in the Bay of Islands in New Zealand’s North Island. This successful fishing trip exceeded his expectations. Wayne was held in high regard by all who knew him as a quiet, gentle man with high intelligence and integrity. Family was important to Wayne and Jan, and he fitted in well with Jan’s very large extended family. He was a treasured grandfather who was always there for you and who enjoyed having fun and ice cream.

Wayne was dearly loved by all.

We thank Wayne’s wife Jan for this heartfelt tribute.

Martin L. Coyne’s daughter Melissa ’81, is sad to announce that her father died on April 9, 2019 following a valiant battle with emphysema. Marty was born in Brooklyn in 1931 and graduated with honors in psychology. As the President of Psi Sigma Kappa, he encouraged the fraternity to break away from its National Affiliate when it refused admission to an African American member and formed Gamma Psi. He served in the Army and then worked in commodities where he was one of the top people in his field worldwide, as senior vice president at J. Aron & Co then a partner at Goldman Sachs.

Following his early retirement, Marty devoted his time to philanthropic and charitable causes, volunteering for Hospice-by-the-Sea, Jewish Federation, the Mizner Festival for the Arts and as Chairman of the Florida Philharmonic, to name but a few. He used a $1 million work bonus to found the Coyne Family Foundation (which has donated almost $2.5 million since 1985), established AMORE, which provided free financial advice to the elderly, was co-founder of the Boca Raton Symphonia (now in its 15th year) and recently started the Healing Sounds of Music which provides healing music programs by professional musicians in assisted living facilities in Boca Raton. For those who are interested, contributions to healingsoundsofmusic.org would be gratefully accepted.