Obituaries | 1950-1959

David Hohl ’60 writes: RICHARD K. ROOT ’59, M.D. died on Sunday, March 19, 2006, when a crocodile suddenly rose out of the water and dragged him from his dugout canoe on the Limpopp River in the Tuli Game Preserve in eastern Botswana. He was not seen again; his remains were recovered two days later.

A Nationally known expert in infectious disease, internationally recognized in the field of leukocyte biology, and widely respect for his teaching and clinical skills, Dr. Root, along with his second wife, Rita O’Goyle, had been in Botswana at the invitation of the Botswana Department of Health and the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. Dr. Root had been instrumental in starting the infectious disease program at the University of Pennsylvania when he was a professor there in 1971. The Penn-Botswana program was funded in part by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Merck & Company, Inc., to help provide treatment and services for the country’s HIV victims and to address the acute lack of trained doctors and nurses in Botswana, which has the world’s highest rate of HIV infection at an estimated 40 percent of the population. Dr. Root had been working with the staff at Botswana’s Princes s Marina Hospital in Garborone, the capital city, and the couple had just visited a clinic in the remote, northeastern district of Tuli when they decided to take the ill-fated river tour. Root’s wife was in the canoe behind him and his guide and witnessed her husband’s death.

The death in 2001 of his first wife from a progressive neuromuscular disease (Lou Gehrig’s disease) and his withdrawal from the practice of medicine in order to look after her had left Dr. Root in a prolonged personal crisis. According to his son, David, after meeting his second wife and marrying her in 2004, his father “had a second lease on life. He re-entered the practice of medicine with this incredible amount of renewed energy.” Dr. Harvey Friedman, chief of the infectious diseases division at the University of Pennsylvania and director of the Botswana program, had visited Dr. Root just days before his death and said that he was the happiest he had been in years. Dr. Ruth Greenblatt, professor of clinical medicine and epidemiology at the University of California, San Francisco, for whom Dr. Root was a mentor, describe Dr. Root as “one of the most personable, caring and bright people I have worked with. … That he chose to teach in Botswana, country with a particularly intense AIDS epidemic, is no surprise to me. To place himself in a setting where he could make great contributions as a teacher is very much in keeping with the direction of his life.”

Dr. RooT graduated from WEsleyan with Honors in General Scholarship and Distinction in Biochemistry. He was #3 and Pledge Trainer at Alpha Alpha, a varsity letterman in football and track, and a member of three honor societies, including Sigma Xi. He received his medical degree from Johns Hopkins University in 1963 and, following his internship at Massachusetts General Hospital, he worked as a clinical associate and investigator at various divisions of the National Institutes of Health and as chief resident and instructor at the University of Washington. From 1969 to 2002, when he became an emeritus professor from the University of Washington Medical School, where he was vice chairman of the department of medicine and retired from Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where he had been chief of medicine, he held senior appointments at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was chief of infectious diseases at Yale University, where he was vice chairman of medicine and was voted medical school teacher of the year in 1982, at the Veterans Administration Hospital, Seattle, where he was chief of medicine, and at the University of California, San Francisco, where he was chair of the department of medicine. Dr. Root was co-author of numerous articles, editor-in-chief of a textbook, Clinical Infectious Diseases, a former president of the American Federation of Clinical Research and, from 1986–1991, director of the AIDS advisory Committee of the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Root is survived by three sons: David, a Seattle architect; Richard, a college and high school teacher in Los Angeles; and Daniel, a Seattle physician; by his wife, Rita O’Boyle; by her two daughters, Becky Fotheringhamn and Anna Potvin of Seattle; and by eight grandchildren.

LEONARD ULLIAN, the founder of The Law Office of Ullian & Associates, Inc., died Jan. 11, 2010, at age 77. A member of Chi Psi, he served in the U.S. Navy. He received his MBA degree from Columbia University and his law degree from Suffolk Law School. Survivors include his wife, Marilyn Jacobson Ullian; three children, including Thomas Ullian ’85; seven grandchildren; and a large extended family.

SCOTT SHEPHERD, a businessman and principal of Scott Shepherd Associates, died Nov. 16, 2011. He was 79. A member of Psi Upsilon, he served in the U.S. Army. His career with AT&T took him from a salesman to a lobbyist. A community volunteer, he was particularly active with the Salvation Army in support of post-9/11 and military efforts. He was also a runner and a historical researcher. Among those who survive are his wife, Ruth Gesin Shepherd, two children, and a granddaughter.

EDMUND H. SONNENBLICK, MD, 74, a cardiologist whose research formed the basis for the modern treatment of heart failure, died Sept. 22, 2007. He received his degree with high honors and with high distinction in chemistry, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and to Sigma Xi. After receiving his medical degree at Harvard University, where he was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha, he trained at Columbia University’s Presbyterian Hospital, continued his research at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute in Bethesda, Md., and at Harvard University, and joined the Albert Einstein College of Medicine faculty in the Bronx, N.Y., where he was a distinguished university professor of medicine. His findings about the structure and function of heart muscle cells and how the heart muscle contracts and relaxes contributed to the development by others of a new class of lifesaving drugs, called ACE inhibitors. He and other researchers also adapted beta blockers for use in heart failure, and he was credited as the first to use an electron microscope to image heart muscle under scientifically controlled conditions. He received the Distinguished Scientist Award from the American College of Cardiology in 1985, and this year the American Heart Association named him the recipient of one of its highest prizes, the Research Achievement Award. His daughter, Annie Sonnenblick ’80, for whom the Annie Sonnenblick Lecture/Distinguished Writer Series and the Annie Sonnenblick Writing Prize is named, predeceased him. He is survived by his wife, Linda Bland Sonnenblick; two daughters, including Charlotte Van Doren ’84; and five grandchildren, including Caroline Offit ’10.

RALPH E. SHORT, 77, who retired as chaplain at Wentworth Military Academy, died Oct. 6, 2009. He was a member of Delta Tau Delta and received master’s degrees from Andover Newton Theological School and from James Madison University. A U.S. Army veteran who served as a chaplain in Vietnam, he taught for 25 years at schools in Virginia and Missouri. He is survived by his wife, June Fagg Short, his son, and a brother.

HOWARD L. SCHIFF, an attorney, died Feb. 14, 2007. He was 73. After receiving his law degree from Cornell University, he founded his own firm in East Hartford, Conn., in 1958. Survivors include his wife, Carol Bleich Schiff, four children, and six grandchildren.

JONATHAN L. ROSNER, a trial attorney, died Jan. 12, 2008. He was 75. A member of Phi Sigma Kappa, he received his law degree from New York University. In addition to a private practice of law, he was an adjunct professor at the New York University School of Law. He served as chief counsel and deputy commissioner of the New York State Commission on Criminal Justice and the Use of Force, and he was the general counsel of the Commission of Inquiry into the 1977 Energy Failure in New York City. Among those who survive are his wife, Lydia Sokol Rosner; three children, including Marianne Klimchuk ’83; four grandchildren; and a brother, Seth Rosner ’52.

WILLIAM T. ROCHE JR., who founded the real estate company Roche and Associates in Kirkland, Wash., died Nov. 13, 2011, at age 80. A member of Delta Tau Delta, he attended the University of Pennsylvania as part of IBM’s MBA program. After several years with IBM, he taught at Bellevue (Wash.) College and then began his career in real estate. Survivors include his wife, Biff Motschall Roche, four children, six grandchildren, and one great-grandchild.

JOHN P. REMENSNYDER, M.D., a surgeon who specialized in burns and who had been chief of the division of plastic and reconstructive surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital, as well as chief of staff at the Shriners Hospital for Children, died Oct. 14, 2006. He was 75. Elected to Phi Beta Kappa, he received his degree with honors and was a member of Psi Upsilon. He received a medical degree from Harvard University. During his long and productive career, he was an invaluable mentor, teacher, and surgeon. He also traveled to other countries to teach and perform plastic and reconstructive surgery. In Moscow, he helped to start the Project HOPE Burn Center for children, work that was featured in a story on National Public Radio. Survivors include his wife, Mary Baldridge Remensnyder; two daughters; a son,Stuart W. Remensnyder ’84; a granddaughter; a sister; a brother-in-law, Robert W. Baldridge ’56; and a niece, Lynn C. Baldridge ’86.

WILLIAM R. QUATTROCCHI JR., the retired president of Q Petroleum, died Dec. 7, 2005, at age 75. He was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon and received his bachelor’s degree from Babson Institute. He is survived by his wife, Portia Brown Quattrocchi, a daughter, and a grandchild.