OCTOBER 2001: CLASS NOTES, DEATHS, BOOKS
DEATHS
Faculty & Trustees
Bernice Levin Neugarten, AB'36, AM'37, PhD'43, professor emerita in psychology (human development) and former director of the graduate program in Adult Development and Aging, died July 22 in Hyde Park. She was 85. An expert on aging, in 1994 she received the American Psychological Foundation Gold Medal for life contribution by a psychologist in the public interest. Neugarten's research provided a more accurate picture of older people, debunking stereotypes of senior citizens as sick, poor, enfeebled, isolated, and desolated. Instead, she argued that a new generation of older people, the young-old, could be distinguished from the middle-aged by retirement, and from the old-old, the previous model, by activity and social involvement. The former president of the Gerontological Society of America, she is survived by a daughter, a son, a brother, and three grandchildren.
Laszlo Stein, former associate professor in surgery, died June 1, 2000. He was 71. Director of the Siegel Institute at the Michael Reese Medical Center and associate professor in Chicago's surgery department from 1968 to 1990, Stein then joined Northwestern University as a professor of communication sciences and disorders. A specialist in clinical audiology, he was acting director of Northwestern's Clinical Hearing Sciences Program, a joint effort of the university's schools of speech and medicine. He is survived by his wife, Jean, and a son.
Katharine Meyer Graham, AB'38, former president and publisher of the Washington Post, died July 17 at age 84. After graduation, Graham worked as a reporter for the San Francisco News and then for the Washington Post, owned by her father. Married to Post publisher Philip Graham, after his 1963 death she took control of the paper, bringing the struggling publication to national prominence and increasing daily circulation. Graham led the paper during the publishing of the Pentagon Papers and the breaking of the Watergate scandal. After stepping down as chair of the board in 1993, she remained on the board as chair of the executive committee. On the board of the Associated Press, she was the first female president of the American Newspaper Publishers Association. A trustee at George Washington University, she became a Chicago trustee in 1969 and received the University's Benton Medal for Distinguished Public Service in 1996. Her 1997 memoir, Personal History, won a Pulitzer Prize. She is survived by a daughter, three sons, and ten grandchildren, including granddaughter Laura M. Graham, AB'00.
1920s
Herman H. Breslich, PhB'26, died in Charlottesville, VA, January 3. He was 94. His career in advertising included ownership of a Chicago-based company and work as an advertising consultant to the law publisher Michie Company. Survivors include his wife, Inez.
Frances Rappaport Horwich, PhB'29, an educator and host of 1950s children's show Ding Dong School, died in Scottsdale, AZ, on July 22. She was 94. Former chair of what is now the education department at Roosevelt University, Horwich founded the pioneering children's television program in 1952. Beginning as a local show on NBC-TV's Chicago affiliate, it was soon broadcast nationally. She also served as director of children's programming for NBC. In June she received the Chicago chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences's Silver Circle Award.
1930s
Mary Brannon Bondurant, X'33, died in her Athens, GA, home April 26. She was 91. Bondurant received bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Georgia, where she directed the personnel office from 1933 until 1944. She then joined her husband's lumber and millwork business. Her civic activities were recognized by the Athens Business and Professional Women's Club, which named her its 1970 Woman of the Year. She is survived by her husband, John; a daughter; two sons; and 11 grandchildren.
Stanley Mosk, PhB'33, X'35, a California Supreme Court justice who wrote landmark decisions on civil rights and criminal law, died June 19 in San Francisco. He was 88. Twice elected state attorney general in the 1960s and 1970s, he created the office's civil-rights division. As a member of the seven-justice Supreme Court, in 1976 Mosk ruled in the Bakke case that all racial preferences were unconstitutional. Mosk's 37-year tenure (from his 1964 appointment until his death) made him California's longest-serving justice. He is survived by his wife, Kaygey, and a son.
Sidney Weinhouse, SB'33, PhD'36, a cancer researcher who received the first National Science Foundation grant, died February 9 in Philadelphia. He was 91. Weinhouse's 1952 NSF grant ($10,300 over three years) supported his research in the metabolic-chemistry department at Lankenau Hospital Research Center and the Institute for Cancer Research in Philadelphia. In the 1960s and 1970s he directed the Fels Research Institute at Temple University's School of Medicine, studying cancer tissue and carbohydrate metabolism. The author of some 200 scientific papers and reviews, he was co-editor of Advances in Cancer Research from 1962 to 1987 and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. He is survived by his wife, Adele; two daughters; a son; a brother; two sisters; and five grandchildren.
Jane Blair Brainard, PhB'34, of Radford, VA, died May 16 at age 87. She was an elementary-school teacher in Waukegan, IL. Survivors include a daughter; three sons, including Lawrence J. Brainard, PhD'71; a brother; and nine grandchildren.
Robert F. Rushmer, SB'36, MD'39, a pediatrician and physiologist, died July 13 in a Seattle suburb. He was 86. Rushmer joined the University of Washington in 1947 as an assistant professor of physiology and biophysics. Using Doppler ultrasound and other bioengineering techniques, he and his colleagues developed diagnostic devices credited with reducing premature deaths from circulatory ailments as well as devices for monitoring fetal heart rates. In 1967 he founded the Center of Bioengineering, retiring as professor emeritus of bioengineering in 1985. He is survived by his wife, Estella; two daughters; a son; and four grandchildren.
Erwin A. ("Bud") Salk, AB'39, AM'41, president of Salk, Ward & Salk Mortgage Bankers, died in Evanston, IL, July 7, 2000. He was 82. During the post-WWII occupation of Japan he served on General Douglas MacArthur's staff. He spent two years in Paris with the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization. A civil-rights activist, Salk taught a course on minority history at Columbia College and wrote two books on African-American history. He was also a director of the DuSable Museum of African-American History. He is survived by his wife, Evelyn; three sons; and seven grandchildren.
1940s
Mirron Alexandroff, X'42, president of Columbia College from 1962 to 1992, died in Chicago April 20. He was 78. Emphasizing open-admissions policies, he helped the Chicago arts and communications school grow from a few hundred students to today's 9,500 enrollment. A WWII veteran, Alexandroff was active in civil rights, social and economic justice, and universal-health-care issues and was an early supporter of Harold Washington's mayoral candidacy. Survivors include two daughters, a son, and six grandchildren.
Mary Carroll Cassidy, MBA'49, died April 24 in her Austin, TX, home. She was 90. From 1936 to 1957 Cassidy was corporate secretary, accountant, and director of the Carpet Laying Service. After brief stints at DePaul University and the University of Illinois, she taught at Wright Junior College from 1948 until her 1974 retirement, co-authoring an introductory cost-accounting text. Retiring to Texas, she continued work with the Illinois Federation of Teachers and served as auditor for several local chapters of the Texas Federation of Teachers. She is survived by a daughter and two grandchildren.
1950s
Vera Sangernebo Flandorf, AM'52, died June 26 in Morton Grove, IL. She was 100. The retired librarian had worked at the University of Chicago Children's Hospital and Newberry Library. A published poet and writer, she won a Speak Out Award in 1974 and was active in the Chicago Women's Club, Chicago Women's Musical Club, Chicago Club of Women Organists, and Lakeview Musical Society.
Mildred Reinke Dordal, AM'53, a clinical social worker, died April 7 in her Hyde Park home. She was 72. In 1949, as part of a Bavarian work camp run by the Lutheran World Federation, she helped to build a Lutheran church and assisted people with disabilities, returning in 1999 to celebrate the church's 50th anniversary. Dordal was with Lutheran Social Services of Illinois for more than 30 years, including work in the student counseling office at the Lutheran School of Theology. Survivors include her husband, Erl Dordal, AB'52, MD'56; two daughters; two sons Peter L. Dordal, SM'78, and Andrew G. Dordal, MBA'92; a brother; and seven grandchildren. (This corrects information published in the August/01 issue.-Ed.)
Jean MacKenzie de Sola Pool, PhD'53, of Cambridge, MA, died July 19. She was 82. An assistant professor and dean at Mills College (1942-1946), she joined the U of C as a research associate (1949-1956). As research director at the Radcliffe Institute for Independent Study (1964-1970), she studied what factors help women artists and entrepreneurs successfully reenter the work force after taking time off to raise a family. She was an inveterate traveler; at the time of her death she was concluding a trip to Hungary and Slovakia. Survivors include a son, Adam D. Pool, AB'81; two stepsons, including Jonathan R. Pool, AM'68, PhD'71; and a grandson.
Daniel N. Greenberg, AM'54, former superintendent of Chicago Read Mental Health Center, died July 13 in Chicago. He was 76. A 19-year-old gunner in WWII (earning a Silver Star and a Purple Heart), he spent most of his career with the Illinois Department of Mental Health, becoming superintendent of Chicago Read in the 1980s. He was active in the Labor Zionist Alliance, the Chicago Jewish Historical Society, and the Chicago YIVO Society (a Yiddish cultural group). He is survived by his wife, Clare; a daughter; two sons, including Aaron S. Greenberg, JD'62; and a sister.
Andrew J. Laska, AM'55, of Weston, MA, died May 23 at age 73. During WWII he participated in the anti-Nazi resistance and during the Cold War supported refugees from Cuba and Czechoslovakia. Before retiring from the Kendall Company in 1988, he headed the international health-care company's Cuban branch for three years and its Brazilian office for five years. An art collector, he was also an amateur photographer. Survivors include his wife, Vera Oravec Laska, PhD'59, and a son.
Louis N. Gross, SB'59, died in March 1998. He was 59. With master's degrees from Northeastern University and MIT, he worked for a number of computer companies including Digital Equipment, where he was employed until his death. Gross was active in Temple Emanuel in Lowell, MA, and in Havurat Shalom in Somerville, MA. He is survived by his wife, Patricia.
1960s
Agnes Foldes Rezler, PhD'60, a retired professor, died April 8 in Albuquerque, NM. She was 78. After posts in the psychology department at Northern Illinois University (1963-1967) and the education department of University of Illinois at Chicago's medical school (1968-1985), she was director of Project Evaluation at the University of New Mexico. Author of several books and journal articles, she is survived by her husband, Julius, and a sister.
John F. Dwyer, AM'61, former chair of the English department at Buffalo (NY) State College, died March 23. He was 65. He served in the Army from 1957 to 1959. Dwyer taught English at Buffalo State College for 28 years; he chaired the department from 1980 to 1989 and retired in December 1999. Survivors include his wife, Cynthia; a daughter; two sons; and two brothers.
John Panagakis, MBA'62, an accountant, died July 23, 2000, of a heart attack. He was 65. The Park Ridge, IL, resident served in the Army in his 20s, including a year in Juneau, AK. After earning his M.B.A. Panagakis taught accounting at the Loop City Junior College, now Harold Washington College; he also operated an accounting business for 35 years. An avid golfer, he is survived by his wife, Betty Ann; a daughter; a son; a brother; and three grandchildren.
Dale L. Good, AB'69, died June 17 at age 54. In the 1980s the Evanston, IL, resident, was associate editor at Funk & Wagnalls and senior editor at Random House in New York. In the late 1980s and 1990s he was editorial director at Compton's Encyclopedia. A life member of Mensa, Good was a longtime member of the Jewish Reconstructionist Congregation, serving on its executive board. He is survived by his wife, Marcie; a daughter; a son; and a sister.
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