An environmental activist and politician, died Feb. 13, 2013, at age 63. A 33-year resident of Fountain Valley, Calif., he was a member of the City Council and later served as the city’s mayor. Survivors include his wife, Verna Ayer, his parents, two sons, and three siblings.
Dennis M. Dubin, a child advocate in the Philadelphia court system, died Nov. 12, 2008. He was 58. A College of Letters major at Wesleyan, he initially worked as an actor in New York and Hawaii after graduation. In the 1980s, he began his second career, earning a law degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1988 and serving as a child advocate until his death. He had been undergoing treatment for bladder cancer. Survivors include a sister.
DAVID S. DUNAVAN, a retired electro-optical engineer, died Dec. 21, 2003 at age 72. The son of the late Caryl C. Dunavan ’22, he received a master’s degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was also a U.S. Navy veteran. An avid sailor and environmentalist, he was a longtime member of the Norwalk (Conn.) Harbor Management Commission. He is survived by his wife, Sally B. Dunavan; a son; and two daughters, including Caryl Dunavan ’85.
JOHN A. DAVIDSON, the retired proprietor of Goodsports and Company, and a retired principal in the firm of Davidson and Bigelow, Inc., died May 5, 2008, at age 77. He was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon. He is survived by his wife, Joan Griffiths Davidson, three children, five grandchildren, a brother, and a sister.
WARD T. DEWITT, who retired as second-in-command of the New York State prison system and who went on to be the executive director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Institute for Nonviolence, died June 12, 2010, at age 62. A member of Eclectic, he began his career as counselor and then became a criminal justice adviser to the New York State Governor. He served on the Albany, N.Y., school board for five years, including as chair, and he helped to lead the board of the New Covenant Charter School, Albany’s first charter school. Survivors include his wife, Mary Ferguson DeWitt, four children, two grandchildren, three sisters, and a large extended family.
WILLIAM H. DAUGHERTY JR., a pharmaceutical consultant, died July 5, 2010. He was 49 and had most recently worked for CIGNA in Tennessee. Among those who survive are his wife, Laura Lamb Daugherty, his mother, his daughter, two aunts, and many cousins.
It is with great sadness that we report the death of DARIA DONNELLY, Class of 1981. Daria died in Boston, Massachusetts on September 21, 2004, three years after her first symptoms of multiple myeloma, cancer of the bone marrow. She leaves her husband, Steven Weissburg, and two children, Leo and Josephine.
A native of Pittsburgh, she received her elementary and secondary education from Mercy nuns. After majoring in religion at Wesleyan University, Daria taught in an inner-city high school, cooked for a Catholic Worker house in Rochester, NY, and spent a year studying (Hebrew and religion), traveling, and dog-watching in Jerusalem. A love of literature and desire to integrate that with religious studies led Daria to a PhD in English and American Literature from Brandeis University. She studied nineteenth-century American poetry and theodicy under the MacArthur genius grantee Allen Grossman. Teaching (at Boston University), research, and writing followed. In 2000, she joined the staff of Commonwealth Magazine, an independent journal of opinion edited and managed by lay Catholics, as Associate Editor At Large and Poetry Editor.
WILLIAM U. COPELAND, 77, the owner of Bird Bay Realty in Venice, Fla., died Nov. 12, 2006. He was a member of Psi Upsilon and received his degree from the University of Nebraska. During the Korean War he served in the US Air Force. He is survived by his wife, Elizabeth Logan Copeland, two sons, three stepdaughters, six grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and a brother.
DONALD G. CONRAD, a financial executive who more recently was senior adviser to the president of the World Bank in Washington, D.C., died Aug. 9, 2008. He was 78. After attending Wesleyan, he received his bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University and an MBA from the University of Michigan. He was a member of Beta Theta Pi. After four years as a U.S. Navy officer, he joined Exxon as CFO of Esso Europe. He then spent 18 years with Aetna in Hartford, Conn., as chief investment officer, CFO and a member of the board. In 1988 he became part owner and CEO of the Hartford Whalers hockey club, which he sold in 1991. He was a founder of the Greater Hartford Arts Council and chairman emeritus of the American Council of the Arts, now Americans for the Arts. Among those who survive are his wife, Stephania Conrad, four children, a stepdaughter, a sister, and six grandchildren.
LEE (LIBERATO) CASSELLA ’50, D.D.S, a specialist in oral surgery, died Mar. 11, 2013. He was 88. A member of Sigma Chi, he received his degree with honors and received his dental degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. After 13 years of practicing general dentistry, he returned to the University of Pennsylvania and received postgraduate training in oral and maxillofacial surgery. He practiced oral surgery in Hamden, Conn, until his retirement in 1987.
He was a member and officer of numerous professional boards, and was a Fellow of the American College of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons. His first wife, Rita Rose Ives Cassella, predeceased him. Among those who survive are his wife, Joan Jansen Cassella; four children; five stepchildren; five grandchildren, including Luci Lee Cassella ’11; and 13 step-grandchildren.
