Obituaries | 1970-1979

DOUGLAS B. THOMPSON, 60, a philanthropist and the founder of Jupiter Management Company, a private equity firm that invests in the energy sector, died June 9, 2010. He was a member of Psi Upsilon and received an MBA from Harvard University. While at Wesleyan he attended the Economic Institute in Santiago, Chile, where he developed a lifelong interest in South America and the start of his career in the energy business. He was predeceased by a brother. Among those who survive are his wife, Leslie Bacon Thompson, four children, his parents, three sisters, and a brother.

ANDREW F. TOTH, 1948-2005, passed away in November at his home in Denpasar, Bali after a long battle with lung and brain cancer. A self-actualized individual, he devoted his life to what he loved best: the classical music traditions of Bali and Java, their performance and analysis. He was highly respected in the field of ethnomusicology as a first class musician, researcher, teacher, scholar, recorder and colleague. As American Consular Agent in Bali he was instrumental in helping numerous others – musicians, scholars, students, tourists, politicians, sailors – find the “real” Bali beyond the typical tourist experience. He was a passionate friend and husband who loved fishing, SCUBA, white water rafting, squash and, most of all, punning. He leaves behind a gaping hole, and will be sorely missed by his colleagues and friends. Andy was a local Connecticut boy who attended the public schools in the nearby town of Meriden.

His interest in music began early with the accordion which he played at family and school events. In high school, he played guitar with the most popular rock and roll band in the region, the North Atlantic Invasion Force. A product of the post-Sputnik era, he was fascinated by science and won a Special Summer Study Grant from the National Science Foundation to study astronomy. He was valedictorian of his class at Orville Platt High School and came to Wesleyan as a freshman in the fall of 1966 as one of Hoy’s Boys in the class of 1970. His extraordinary family also sent his younger siblings Patrick (1978) and Mary Ann (1975) to Wesleyan. Andy came to Wesleyan with the intention of being a Chemistry major and quickly became associated with the brilliant Dr. Peter Leermakers. As Leermaker’s research assistant, Andy worked in the photochemistry lab and co-authored papers on photochromism as an undergraduate. Rock and roll remained a force in his life, and he was a member of the dynamic campus band, Uranus and the Five Moons. But this was Wesleyan, and Professor Bob Brown (who passed away within days of Andy) had established a ground-breaking program in ethnomusicology focusing on both performance and scholarship including the cultural traditions of West Africa, North and South India, Japan and Indonesia. Visiting artists from these countries and their students put on compelling concerts of music and dance which riveted the attention of most undergraduates many of whom would try their hand at mastering one or more of these disciplines. Some took up the infectious talking drums of Ghana; others were fascinated by the sinuous rhythms of the tabla and mrdungam; and many fell in love with the ethereal and stately classical tradition of Javanese gamelan. This was one of the things that made (and still makes) the Wesleyan experience so distinctive, unique and exciting.

Andy experimented with several music traditions, but, with Bob Brown as his mentor, committed himself to the musical culture of Java and Bali. He performed regularly with the gamelan orchestra under the supervision of Pak Prawotosaputro and finally made the difficult decision to become a music major. He received a Wesleyan Honors College Fellowship and spent a semester traveling and studying with Bob Brown in India, Java and Bali, his first taste of international travel. He was hooked.

Andy wrote his Honors Thesis on The Gamelan Sekati of Central Java and graduated Cum Laude with High Honors in Music. He was well on his way to becoming a master musician specializing in gender, an elaborating instrument which plays phrasings around the core melody line. After graduation, Andy accompanied Bob Brown to the brand new California Institute of the Arts where Bob was establishing a program in Ethnomusicology. Andy was a graduate student in the MFA program and served as a Teaching Assistant. In 1971, supported by a Foreign Study Grant from Cal Arts, Andy went on the first American Society for Eastern Arts trip to Java and Bali. Coordinated by Bob Brown, this seminal trip included many of the people who would become key figures in the field of Ethnomusicology particularly in the area of Indonesian music. The group included several other Wesleyan students: Alan Feinstein (1970), Michael Flynn (1970) and John Pemberton (1970). Bob arranged for this group to study with many of the top musicians and teachers in Java and Bali.

On this trip Andy met Danielle Diffloth, a professional photographer who was resident in Java doing a photo documentary accompanied by her young daughter, Natalie Diffloth ’87). Andy married Danielle in 1974. After receiving his MFA from Cal Arts in 1972, Andy joined the PhD program in Ethnomusicology at UCLA where he was able to work with the legendary Mantle Hood, one of the giants of the field (and who also passed away recently).

As a visiting instructor he taught courses in ethnomusicology and performance at several schools in the LA area. He was also Curator of the Colin McPhee Collection at UCLA. In 1975 he received a Fullbright-Hays Dissertation Abroad Fellowship, and he and Danielle spent a year in Bali doing research and making recordings on tuning systems for Balinese gamelans. Andy became fluent in both Indonesian and Balinese and continued studying with the best musicians in Bali. Andy was very active publishing articles and reviews, assisting on record albums and films, attending and giving papers at the Society for Ethnomusicology and other professional organizations, and giving invited lectures. Of course, he also maintained a satisfying schedule of performances of both Javanese and Balinese music.

After completing the requirements for the PhD at UCLA in 1978, Andy took a position back East as an Assistant Professor at Brown University teaching Ethnomusicology. Using instruments he had brought back from Indonesia, he set up performing groups for both Javanese and Balinese music in Providence. He also performed with the Boston Village Gamelan established in 1979 by Wesleyan graduates Sam Quigley and Alan Robinson. He continued working on his dissertation research and his active program of teaching, publishing, speaking and performing.

In 1983 Andy left Brown and got divorced. After a brief stint working as a computer programmer, he made the decision to follow his heart and return to Bali where he could continue his studies and immerse himself in the culture that he loved. For a number of years he worked with the Ford Foundation and as a Visiting Lecturer at the Indonesian College of Arts (STSI) in Denpasar teaching field research methods and ethnomusicology. He became a mainstay of the expat community in Bali performing gender wayang regularly in local festivals and available to help students and researchers, scholars and film-makers.

In 1989 he became the third American musician proficient in Balinese music to become US Consular Agent. In this position he was in charge of caring for US interests and citizens in Bali. He took care of visa problems, legal problems, illness and accidents, seeing that American citizens received necessary services and aid in returning to the US. He organized visits by dignitaries including Secretaries of State, Presidents and ships full of sailors. And he continued to play a critical role facilitating the visits of students, scholars and tourists and gaining them entry to vast and intriguing cultural life of Bali. Many people dramatically benefited from his knowledge of music and culture and his expertise at negotiating the system to gain access to the most interesting people and events. He was active in the Rotary Club and settled into a productive and satisfying life in Bali.

Andy met Janti Nasution, a Batak from Java, and married her in 1993. She became his soul-mate and played a major role in the rest of his life.

After so many years in the tropics, Andy’s fair skin became a problem. He suffered from a variety of skin cancers that required numerous medical procedures in Australia and Singapore.

In October, 2002, the second of two terrorist bombs exploded outside his office, thankfully with no casualties. Shortly thereafter, Andy resigned as Consular Agent. He took a position in a silver exporting company and continued his life as a well-connected expat. Over time, his illness increasingly compromised his ability to function, and after a long struggle, he finally passed away in November, 2005.

His widow, Janti, intends to donate his extensive collection of books, papers, research notes, recordings and photos to the Wesleyan University Music Library. It is her wish that these materials be available to scholars and interested researchers.

GREGORY P. SPEISER, a senior vice president at Morgan Stanley, died Jan. 27, 2009, at age 52. A member of Eclectic, he received his degree cum laude and received a master’s degree in business administration from New York University. Among those who survive are his wife, Sian Ballen; two sons: Alex, who was accepted, early decision, to the Wesleyan class of ’13, and William; and a sister–in–law, Kate M. Ballen ’75.

BARBARA GIFFEN SWAIN, 57, an attorney who spent most of her professional legal career in the Office of the Maryland Attorney General, most recently serving as Principal Counsel to the State Treasurer’s Office, died Feb. 4, 2011. A religion major, she served as a VISTA volunteer after receiving her degree cum laude, and then received a dual MBA/JD degree in 1981 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She also participated in the family business, The Dunes Manor Hotel and Dunes Motel in Ocean City, Md. A community leader, she was active in educational, religious, and professional organizations. Among those who survive are her husband, Fred Demers, two sons, and a large extended family.

TIMOTHY B. SAUM, M.D., associate professor of internal medicine and preventive medicine at Meharry Medical College, died May 9, 2005 at age 53. He received his medical degree from the Medical College of Virginia and a master’s degree in public health from Yale University. Among those who survive are his wife, Jean L. Byassee, a daughter, his parents, and a brother.

ROBERT T. SULESKE, a biochemist and musician, died Jan. 17, 2004 at age 52. Among those who survive are his mother, a sister, and a nephew and niece.

PETER DELLA SANTINA, a professor of Buddhism, died Oct. 14, 2006, at age 56. Blind since the age of 12 as a result of infantile glaucoma, he received a master’s degree in philosophy and a Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from the University of Delhi. His writings ranged from the technical to the popular, and he served as coordinator of curriculum studies in Buddhism for the Singapore Ministry of Education, was a senior fellow at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, taught philosophy in Taiwan and Thailand, and conducted numerous courses for Buddhist communities in all these countries as well as in Italy, where he lived for extended periods. For more than 30 years, he was a student of His Holiness Sakya Trizin, leader of the Sakya Order of Tibetan Buddhism. Survivors include his wife, Krishna, and a son.

ALEJANDRO D. SUJO, a journalist and musician in New York, Caracas, and Buenos Aires, died Oct. 5, 2008. He was 59. At Wesleyan, he had majored in theater. He and his wife, Laney Salisbury, who survives him, are the authors of a forthcoming book, Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art (Penguin Press, 2009). He is also survived by their daughter, Sophie Salisbury–Sujo. Other survivors include his mother, his brother, a niece, and a nephew, Nicholas During ’06.

THE HON. JOHN W. SCOTT JR, civil rights leader and circuit court judge, died of complications from eye surgery on April 16, 2008. He was 59 and had been blind since birth. As a teenager in 1963, he and several others won a federal lawsuit allowing them to attend James Monroe High School, considered a milestone in the integration of Fredericksburg, Va. At Wesleyan he was a member of Delta Tau Delta and earned his bachelor’s with honors in government. He received his JD from the University of Virginia, worked for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and became a managing partner at Hill, Tucker & Marsh. In 1989, he was appointed General District Court Judge in Stafford County, becoming the first black to serve on the bench in the Fredericksburg area, rising to the circuit level seven years later. He is survived by his wife, Alma, and three sons.

JEFFREY D. ROTHBERG, 52, a screenwriter and film and television producer, died Oct. 9, 2009. He received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television. Survivors include his wife, Meg Rothberg, two children, his mother, and his sister.