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Deaths

Trustees

Marion Musser Lloyd, a University life trustee and philanthropist of Libertyville, IL, died April 12. She was 94. Joining the University’s board in 1975, Lloyd was a founding member of the Women’s Board and a member of the Court Theatre Board, the Harper Society, and the Phoenix Society. She was a life member of the Divinity School and Humanities visiting committees and a member of the Oriental Institute’s Friends of Nippur. Last April Lloyd received the University of Chicago Medal, only the tenth person to receive the honor since its establishment in 1976. Lloyd was also a life trustee of the American University in Cairo, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the Ravinia Festival Association. She is preceded by her husband, former trustee chair Glen A. Lloyd, JD’23. Survivors include two daughters.

Faculty and staff

Saul Bellow, X’39, the Raymond W. and Martha Hilpert Gruner distinguished service professor emertius in the Committee on Social Thought and English Language & Literature, died April 5 in Brookline, MA. He was 89. Bellow joined the Chicago faculty in 1962, leaving in 1993 for Boston University and retiring in 2000. Author of more than a dozen novels and works of nonfiction, including The Adventures of Augie March (1953), Herzog (1962), Mr. Sammler’s Planet (1970), and Humboldt’s Gift (1975), he recreated Chicago as a fictional landscape. Bellow won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1976, the same year he received a Pulitzer Prize for Humboldt’s Gift. Other awards included three National Book Awards and a Presidential medal. Among survivors are his wife, Janis Freedman Bellow, AM’90, PhD’92; three sons, including Gregory Bellow, AB’66, AM’68; and a daughter.

Katherine Austin Lathrop, an professor emerita of radiology and an innovator in nuclear medicine, died March 10 in Las Cruces, NM. She was 89. In 1945, while at the Metallurgical Laboratory (now Argonne National Laboratory), she worked on the Manhattan Project, studying the biological effects of radioactive materials on animals. At Chicago, where she taught for more than 40 years, she helped pioneer techniques for using radiotracers to diagnose cancer. Lathrop continued to publish until age 83. Survivors include four daughters, a brother, a sister, ten grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.

Saunders Mac Lane, SM’31, a mathematician, died April 14 in San Francisco. He was 95. A pioneer in category theory, a branch of algebra with applications in linguistics, physics, and computer science, Mac Lane joined Chicago from Columbia University in 1947. President of the Mathematics Association of America (1951–53), he was honored with the 1989 National Medal of Science. In 1982 he retired a professor emeritus, though he continued to advise students into the 1990s. Survivors include his wife, Osa; two daughters, including Gretchen Mac Lane, X’57; a brother; and a grandchild.

1920s

Frances Skipworth, AM’29, died January 30 in Winter Garden, FL. She was 96. Skipworth taught briefly, then worked for several decades as a librarian at Rutgers University. Survivors include a daughter, a son, three grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

1930s

Jane B. Brady, PhB’34, SM’36, an advocate for good nutrition, died February 13 in Bethesda, MD. She was 91. Brady became interested in the relationship between nutrition and health while caring for her son, Robert, who suffered a brain injury at age 21. She cofounded the Nutrition for Optimal Health Association, which makes nutrition research accessible to the public. Besides Robert, survivors include a son and a granddaughter.

Frederick H. Bair Jr., AB’35, a pioneer in developing planning and zoning principles, died February 14 in Auburndale, FL. He was 89. Bair worked for the Florida Development Commission and then ran a consulting firm. As early as the 1950s, he advocated planning to support racial and socioeconomic integration, writing an influential book, The Text of a Model Zoning Ordinance, and editing several planning journals. He won the American Planning Association’s Distinguished Leadership by a Planner Award in 2000. Survivors include his wife, Margaret; a daughter; a son; a sister; and eight grandchildren.

Lorraine Westerberg, AB’39, a specialist in Swedish church music, died February 22 in Evanston, IL. She was 88. Raised in a Swedish-American neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side, Westerberg lectured on Swedish music and art at the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis. Survivors include a daughter, two sons, and three grandchildren.

1940s

Helen Brown Wicher, PhD’41, died February 22 in California. She was 88. An assistant professor at the Harvard Institute for Classical Studies, Wicher conducted research and wrote about Gregorius Nysseus. Survivors include her husband, Edward; a daughter; five sons; 16 grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

Robert G. Ettelson, AB’42, MBA’46, an accountant, died March 15 in Scottsdale, AZ. He was 84. A managing and senior partner at Arthur Young & Co. (later Ernst & Young) in Chicago, Ettelson was known for mentoring young accountants. Survivors include his wife, Shirley; two stepsons; and five grandchildren.

Mary Sakraida Kunst, PhD’42, a psychologist, died February 13 in Chicago. She was 100. Active in the emerging field of educational therapy, Kunst treated children with psychiatric problems and learning disabilities. She also taught courses at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Marjorie Hellerstein, AM’47, of Newton, MA, an emeritus professor of English and American literature at the Massachusetts College of Art, died January 5. She was 80. Survivors include daughter Deborah Hellerstein, AM’83, and four sons.

Frank McCain Brewster Jr., PhB’48, MBA’48, a businessman and systems analyst, died December 4 in Bradford, PA. He was 82. After Air Force service during WW II, Brewster joined his father in a family-owned business in Bradford until 1962, when he became a stock analyst. He later worked for the Library of Congress’s science and technology division and as a systems analyst at the Veterans Administration in Washington, DC. Survivors include two daughters and a niece.

Bruce Cole, AM’48, a YMCA executive, died Jan-uary 26 in Chicago. He was 84. After WW II Army service, in 1951 Cole began his 31-year career with the Chicago YMCA. Collaborating with other youth organizations, he developed the nation’s first major manpower program for disadvantaged inner-city youth and young adults. Cole consulted with the U.S. Department of Labor in the 1960s to develop similar programs in 66 cities and towns nationwide. He also consulted for the YMCA of Portugal, the Chicago Mayor’s Office of Manpower, and the United Way. Survivors include his wife, Betty; three sons; and eight grandchildren.

Albert C. Pryor Jr., AM’49, a social-work professor, died February 1 in Springfield, MA. He was 93. Born in rural Kentucky, Pryor put himself through high school and college by working for a year and attending school for a year. The first African American hired as a full-time public high-school teacher in Springfield, he worked as a counselor and then supervisor in the school system’s psychological-services department. He later established the Connecticut social-work program at Western New England College and launched Neighborhood Legal Services of Western Massachusetts. Survivors include his wife, Dorothy; a daughter; a son; and three sisters.

1950s

Milton Davis, AM’51, a Chicago banker and civil-rights activist, died February 11 in Chicago. He was 73. During the 1960s Davis took part in sit-ins protesting housing discrimination and school segregation. At a time when banks “redlined” poor neighborhoods, he originated a lending program for Hyde Park Bank catering to minority borrowers. He cofounded South Shore Bank (now ShoreBank) and later served as president and chairman. By his 2002 retirement, the bank had invested $2 billion in underserved areas in Chicago and beyond. Survivors include his wife, Gertrude; a daughter; and a granddaughter.

Neuree Collier Love, AM’50, a human-services specialist, died January 26 in Nashville, TN. She was 87. Love worked for 46 years at the Tennessee Department of Public Welfare (later the Department of Human Services), retiring as supervisor for international and domestic adoptions for the State of Tennessee. She was active in the Lee Chapel A.M.E. Church. Survivors include two sisters, four nieces, and three nephews.

Bruce Mahon, AB’52, AB’54, MBA’55, a business executive, died February 19 in Winfield, IL. He was 72. After Army service Mahon worked as a financial manager for Arthur Anderson in Cincinnati. He returned to the Chicago area to work as a consultant for Arthur Young and Co.; as chief financial officer of American National Bank; as a vice president at International Harvester Corp.; and, finally, as vice president of corporate planning for Heller International. He served on the board of the Central DuPage Pastoral Counseling Center. Survivors include a son, three daughters, and eight grandchildren.

Edmund Joseph Goehring Sr., MBA’54, a mar-keting consultant, died February 13 in St. Petersburg, FL. After retirement he was a member of the Association for Senior Professionals at Eckerd College, a group devoted to continuing intellectual inquiry. Survivors include a daughter, two sons, and a grandchild.

William E. Blodgett, AM’56, an English teacher, died in August 2004 in California. He was 73. Blodgett taught at Davis High School in California for 31 years. Survivors include his wife, Harriet; a son; a brother; and two grandsons.

Thomas Vance Gilpatrick, PhD’56, a government professor, died January 18 in Rockville, MD. He was 81. Following WW II Army service, Gilpatrick completed his education and taught at Pennsylvania State University. He joined Sweet Briar College in Virginia, where he taught history, government, and constitutional law for 30 years. Gilpatrick was active in the First Unitarian Church of Lynchburg, founded Lynchburg’s emergency-fuel project, sang with the Jefferson Choral Society, and was a member of the ACLU. Survivors include his wife, Jean; two daughters; three brothers; a sister; and three grandchildren.

Carl Tjerandsen, PhD’58, a university administrator, died February 26 in Pacifica, CA. He was 92. After serving in the OSS in WW II and teaching at Kansas State College, Tjerandsen developed liberal-arts extension programs at New York University and at the University of California, Santa Cruz. For 27 years he was also executive secretary of the Emil Schwarzhaupt Foundation. Survivors include two sons, a daughter, and five grandchildren.

1960s

Judith Ann Ball, SB’60, SM’61, a curator of the Seattle Zoo, died from Alzheimer’s disease complications February 10 in Desert Hot Springs, CA. She was 65. Ball taught zoology and then worked in government administration in Seattle and in nearby King and Snohomish counties. In 1983 she became general curator of Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo, opening exhibits including the Trail of Vines for orangutans and the Northern Trail for wolves, bears, and otters. In 1996 she helped rescue ten sun bears, mostly abandoned pets, from Borneo. Ball also worked as a curator at the Los Angeles Zoo. Survivors include her former husband, Gordon Myers, who reunited with Ball to care for her during her illness.

Kenneth R. Todd, MBA’63, an accountant and composer, died of kidney cancer December 20 in Guilford, CT. He was 67. Todd served in the Army from 1959 to 1961, then became a CPA, working at CBS, as controller of Seagram and of American Standard, and as president of Ideal Standard Europe in Belgium. He retired at 50 to pursue a lifelong interest in jazz, studying music at Yale. Survivors include his wife, Patricia; four children; and three grandchildren.

Lenore Coral, AB’61, AM’65, a music librarian, died of cancer March 7 in Ithaca, NY. She was 66. Coral worked at the University of California, Irvine, and the University of Wisconsin, Madison, before heading to Cornell in 1982, where she was a music librarian and an adjunct professor of music. Coral served as president of the Music Library Association and on the board of the International Association of Music Librarians. She helped to develop international standards for the bibliographic description of music. Her sister survives her.

Bernard J. Ransil, MD’64, a mathematician and medical researcher, died April 1, 2004, in Boston. He was 74. A researcher at Harvard, Ransil was among the first to apply advanced computational statistics to clinical studies. Earlier in his career, he did molecular orbital computations at Catholic University of America, and from 1956 until 1960 worked in Robert S. Mulliken’s laboratory of molecular structure at Chicago. Ransil endowed a chair at Duquesne University for the study and integration of science, philosophy, and theology. His theater and music reviews appeared in the Boston Globe. Survivors include four brothers, two sisters, and nieces and nephews.

Marshall Lykins, SB’66, an actuary, died January 19 in Boston. He was 60. Survivors include a daughter.

Nina Dorf, AB’68, AM’70, a social worker, died February 10 in Phoenix. She was 58. After majoring in Slavic languages and earning a social-work degree, Dorf combined her skills to work for the Jewish Family and Community Service Russian Resettlement Program in the 1970s. She served as president of Congregation Shaare Tikvah and cofounded Havura: A New Jewish Voice. Survivors include two children, her mother, and a sister, Rebecca Lynn Coven, MBA’90.

Donald William Feddersen, MBA’69, an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, died February 24 in Boston. He was 70. Feddersen served as an Air Force pilot and then worked in the fledgling information technology industry. In 1978 he became president and CEO of Applicon, a start-up specializing in computer-aided design and manufacturing systems that he sold in 1981 for $220 million. A few years later, he became a venture capitalist. Feddersen, who earned an engineering degree from Purdue, endowed several faculty fellowships at the school, which awarded him an honorary doctorate in engineering in 2001. Survivors include his wife, Catherine; a daughter; three sons; a brother; two sisters; and nine grandchildren.

1970s

Warren Rosenbloom, AB’73, a writer, died of soft tissue sarcoma on February 7 in Chicago. He was 53. Rosenbloom was a writer and analyst with CCH Inc. in Chicago, a publisher of legal books and journals. He also wrote articles about taxes and retirement planning. Rosenbloom supported youth sports, especially Hamlin Park Association baseball. Survivors include his mother, stepfather, and brother.

Hugh Patinkin, JD’75, head of the Chicago-based Whitehall Jewellers chain, died of a heart attack March 30. He was 54. Patinkin was the namesake of one of the founders of the store—originally Marks Bros. Jewelers—established by his family a century ago in Chicago’s Loop. After briefly practicing law, he joined the family business in 1979 and expanded the chain from ten locations to 384 mall-based stores in 38 states. Survivors include his wife, Sheila Crocker Patinkin, AB’75; four children; his parents; and four brothers, including Nicholas M. Patinkin, AM’94.

1980s

J. Kevin Rist, PhD’83, MD’84, died of an aneurysm February 9 in California. He was 48. After earning his medical and biochemistry degrees, Rist did a psychiatry residency in San Francisco, where he was in private practice for 20 years. Survivors include his mother, a sister, and a brother.