Tag: 1959

Categories Obituaries | 1950-1959Posted on

JOHN C. FOSTER ’59

JOHN C. FOSTER, a glass company executive, died Jan. 30, 2013. He was 76. A member of Alpha Delta Phi, he received an MBA from Harvard University. He worked for many years at the Diamond Glass Company, rising to the positions of vice president and corporate director. He left Diamond Glass to found Foster Glass, a glass manufacturer in Salem, N.J. Subsequently, he started Foster Credit Company, which he headed until his retirement. Survivors include his daughter, two sisters, two stepsons, and an extended family.

Categories Class Notes | 1950sPosted on

Class of 1959 | 2014 | Issue 1

The Great Class of 1959 continues to be active and adventuresome!

We will start with a special “shout out” to members of Eclectic and other Wesleyan representatives. About five years ago, Eclectic alums from our class (and others) expressed dismay at the condition of one of the great buildings on campus. Designed by L. H. Bacon, architect for the Lincoln Memorial and several other Wesleyan buildings, the Eclectic House had fallen into a state of disrepair and near ruin. Bing Leverich took up the torch, organized what became the “gang of 10” and persuaded the University to meet and discuss the situation and possible solutions. After several years of hard work and productive negotiations, the beginnings of a solution are emerging, involving current student members, the University, and the alumni.

At the same time, Bill Moody applied for and received both Connecticut and National Historic Places designations for the building. These designations helped change the nature of the debate and put matters on a very constructive course. Many have worked hard to get to this point, but for this edition The Great Class of ’59 salutes Bing and Bill.

Your scribes have heard from many other classmates and will insist on hearing from more. Alan Brooks writes that he had been pulled from retirement two years ago to direct the year-long 125th anniversary celebration of Westminster School, from which he graduated in 1955 and at which he taught for 52 years. He has retired again and thinks it will stick this time. He attempts to delay the results of age by competing with weights in senior events and coaching the sport in the spring.

Bill Moody and wife Janet have moved into “winter quarters” at D.C.’s Knollwood, a retirement community for military officers, although they retain their main residence in Incline Village, Nev. At Knollwood they have reconnected with a couple Bill knew in 1966 at the U.S. Naval Activity in Edzell, Scotland, validating again the concept of the “small world.”

We heard from Hugh Lifson, who reports a life-changing month. His wife of 52 years died after a protracted bout with cancer, while, at the same time, he is getting ready for a big show of his work at the Hudson River Gallery in Iowa City and another show later this winter. We are sorry for Hugh’s loss but having his artwork to lean on is a huge help. Hope the shows are great successes!

Ellen and Herb Steiner report visiting with Sibyl and Tim Martin at their family farm in Connecticut. All is well there, Herb having been an usher at their wedding. Tim is an architect, their two sons are architects and they both married architects. They recently saw Diane and Joe Vander Veer in Philadelphia for some art watching and they also see Amanda and Bob Ogren. Herb and Ellen will spend the winter in Delray Beach.

Owen Tabor writes: “Delighted you and Skip have taken the reins…Bill Moody and others did a fine job with ‘the Few, the Proud…’ It seems, John that you appeared before me somewhere in the last 20 year, Memphis for a wedding, perhaps? [It certainly was, and Owen was in his kilts, playing the bagpipes for the bride and groom in immense style, as always—see below]. Wesleyan ties have been thin to non-existent, and a recent denial of a granddaughter’s application didn’t help. She is happily settled as a freshman at UVA. Anyhow, I am grateful for those years long past. I am retiring from my orthopedic surgery practice, (office only for the last 10 years), leaving my oldest son in charge of a six man group. Four married children, 13 grands, married 52 years to Margaret, a Conn. College girl.

“The wedding in which I was kilted was, I believe, our daughter Mary, marrying Rob Engel from New Jersey.” The couple had originally met at Princeton, but re-met 10 years later, in NYC while she was with the Times. “They are married, now, with four children, and living in Charlotte, N.C. Rob was a Deerfield guy, too, and still with two younger pre-college guys, one or both may go that way. Oldest boy doing gap year at King’s Academy in Jordan, a Deerfield model, and plans to go to Middlebury next year, he thinks. Rob and Mary lived in London for three years, youngest born there, and during those years Margaret was a gold medallion flyer on Delta! Cheers!”

Lastly we heard from Dick Cadigan about a “near miss” with their twin 6-year-old grandsons. While it will take a long time, Dick believes all will come right after they were jammed into a wall by a 90-year-old driver using forward instead of reverse. Dick is a believer in mandatory driving tests for all over 80, probably a very good idea.

Looking forward: Mark your calendars for May 22, 23, and 24, and plan to attend our 55th Reunion; when the Reunion questionnaire arrives, fill it out and return it; send your scribes notes on your activities and whereabouts. Let’s keep the Great Class of ’59 together!

Skip Silloway and John Spurdle
ssillow@gmail.com; 801-532-4311;
jspurdle@aol.com; 212-644-4858

Categories Obituaries | 1950-1959Posted on

BURTON H. SCHELLENBACK ’59

BURTON H. SCHELLENBACH, 76, a communications and publishing consultant, died May 28, 2010. He was a U.S. Army veteran and most recently worked for the Episcopal Church. He is survived by his wife, the Rev. Dr. Susan Schaeffer, three children, one grandchild, and two brothers.

Categories Obituaries | 1950-1959Posted on

RICHARD K. ROOT ’59

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.

Categories Obituaries | 1950-1959Posted on

RICHARD K. ROOT ’59

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.