Faculty and Staff
George Platzman, SB’40, PhD’48, professor emeritus in meteorology, died August 2 in Chicago. He was 88. A pioneer in computerized weather forecasting, he taught meteorology to Air Corps cadets before joining the Chicago faculty in 1947. Before his 1990 retirement, Platzman also researched ocean oscillations and oceanic tides. A devotee of Frédéric Chopin, he donated his extensive collection of scores to the University. He was preceded by his wife, Harriet, and his brother, Robert L. Platzman, SB’37, SM’40, PhD’42.
Louis Kurs, SM’48, a geologist, died August 22 in Annapolis, MD. He was 83. A researcher at Argonne, Kurs first taught physical science and geology at the University, Wright Junior College, and the University of Illinois. In 1964 he joined St. John’s College in Annapolis, later guest lecturing at the University of Arizona. He continued to teach graduate courses after his 1992 retirement. Survivors include his wife, Alice Kurs, PhB’46, SB’48; four daughters; six grandsons; and one great-granddaughter.
Eunice H. McGuire, CER’86, a Lab Schools teacher emerita, died August 21 in Chicago. She was 89. McGuire joined the Laboratory Schools in 1945, serving as an English teacher and department chair until 1984. The Eunice Helmkamp McGuire Award in English, a partial-tuition scholarship, is given to two U-High juniors for creative writing. Survivors include one niece, three nephews, and several great-nieces and nephews.
1930s
Robert S. Shane, SB’30, PhD’33, a chemical engineer, died May 29 in Stuart, FL. He was 97. A specialist in adhesives chemistry, Shane developed polishing compounds and water reactors for Navy submarines before becoming staff scientist at the National Materials Advisory Board. He was named to NASA’s Space Technology Hall of Fame and received the medal of the Swedish Royal Academy of Engineering. His wife, Jeanne Lazarus Shane, SB’41, died in September. Survivors include two daughters, a son, six grandchildren, and ten great-grandchildren.
Charlotte Morehouse Duesing, AB’32, AM’34, died November 5 in Webster, TX. She was 97. A special-education teacher, Duesing lived in Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Memphis, Richmond, Atlanta, New Orleans, and Philadelphia before settling in Texas in 1998. She loved to travel and visited every state in the United States, plus Australia, New Zealand, and much of Europe. Survivors include a daughter, two sons, five grandchildren, and 14 great-grandchildren.
Louis “Studs” Terkel, PhB’32, JD’34, author and radio host, died October 31 in Chicago. He was 96. Terkel became known for his interviews on his radio show, which ran for 45 years on WFMT. In 1967 he wrote Division Street: America, a groundbreaking work of oral history. Awarded an Alumni Association Professional Achievement Citation in 1978, Terkel received the 1985 Pulitzer Prize for The Good War: An Oral History of World War II. Other honors included the National Humanities Medal and the National Medal of Arts. He was preceded by his wife, Ida Terkel, PhB’33. Survivors include a son. [See “A Lifetime of Listening,” page 40.—Ed.]
Allen Bernstein, AM’34, a labor-market analyst, died September 8 in Scarborough, ME. He was 95. After serving in WW II, Bernstein was an analyst with the Maine State Labor Department until 1978. He was named a 1999 Red Cross Volunteer of the Year. Coauthor of an architectural history of Boston, he loved to travel. Survivors include two sons and two grandsons.
Cecil Marie Yocum, AB’37, died June 28 in Indianapolis. She was 92. During WW II Yocum worked for the U of C’s psychiatric-research department and the Chicago YMCA. She married her late husband Robert in 1943. She was an active member of the American Legion Auxiliary. Survivors include three sons, three daughters, 13 grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren.
Robert Orrin Burke, AB’38, a controller, died October 29 in Munster, IN. He was 92. An Army captain during WW II, he received a Bronze Star. He worked at American Maize Products Company, first in Indiana, then as a corporate controller in New York. A life member of Sigma Chi fraternity, he retired in 1966. Survivors include a daughter, two grandsons, and two great-grandsons.
Ruth Owens Krusé, AM’39, died January 26, 2008, in Tallahassee, FL. She was 95. A tireless advocate for children, she volunteered with the Miami-Dade County Youth Advisory Board and other organizations. In 1991 the Ruth Owens Krusé Educational Center, a school for children with emotional disabilities, was opened in her honor. Survivors include two daughters, a son, a brother, five grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
Jerrold Orne, PhD’39, died July 13 in Chapel Hill, NC. He was 97. A Navy veteran, Orne directed several academic libraries before joining the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill as university librarian, a position he held from 1957 to 1972. He also taught at the UNC School of Library Science and surveyed library schools in Cuba, Vietnam, and Canada for the State Department. In 1974 Orne received the American Library Association’s highest honor, the Joseph W. Lippincott Award. Survivors include his wife, Catherine; a son; two daughters; five grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
1940s
Charlotte Roe Bond, SB’40, SM’62, died June 18 in Lincoln, NE. She was 90. In 1951 Bond moved to Great Falls, MT, where she taught science at West Junior High and was a guidance counselor at C. M. Russell High School until retirement in 1979. Bond participated in the AAUW and the Montana Cowgirls Association. Survivors include two sons, including Alan Bond, SB’68, and two grandchildren.
Dan B. Genung Jr., AM’40, DB’41, died August 12 in Claremont, CA. He was 93. Founder of Los Angeles’s All Peoples Christian Church, Genung received the 1993 Distinguished Alumnus Award from the U of C’s Disciples Divinity House for his commitment to a multiethnic ministry. An amateur historian, he wrote Death in His Saddlebags about his grandfather’s Arizona exploits, and an autobiography, A Street Called Love. Survivors include his wife, Frances; two sons; two daughters; ten grandchildren; four great-grandchildren; and four great-great grandchildren.
Hilda (O’Brien) Quy, AB’40, died August 8 in Manton, MI. She was 92. Quy spent a year in Germany as a civilian with the War Department before marrying Laurence Quy in 1948. She worked for the U.S. government and private organizations in Washington, DC; Germany; and Paris. A painter, Quy retired to Bradenton, FL, where she wrote for the local paper. Survivors include a niece, a nephew, five great-nephews, and ten great-great-nieces and nephews.
Leibert J. Sandars, MD’41, a radiologist, died July 26 in Reno, NV. He was 94. He served in the Naval Reserves medical corps during WW II and completed his residency at San Francisco General. In 1952 he founded Reno Radiological Associates, which he directed for 37 years. A president of the Northern California Radiological Society, he taught at the University of Nevada School of Medicine. Survivors include two daughters.
Sol W. Weller, PhD’41, a chemical engineer, died August 24 in Getzville, NY. He was 90. After working on the Manhattan Project, he authored patents and conducted research on kinetics and coal liquefaction. In 1963 he joined the University at Buffalo as a professor. He received several honors, including two Fulbright awards. He was preceded by his wife, Miriam (Damick) Weller, AB’41, AM’42. Survivors include a daughter, Sue Weller Herring, SB’67, PhD’71, and two sons.
Ralph C. Ashley, AB’42, a businessman, died August 27 in Tucson, AZ. He was 88. A WW II veteran, he spent two decades in St. Joseph, MI, as a sales manager with Whirlpool Corporation. In 1965 he became director at Geo D. Roper Corporation in Kankakee, IL, then chaired Cryenco in Denver. Survivors include four daughters, a brother, ten grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
Woodrow Wilson Allan Jaffee, SB’42, SM’47, died September 25 in Boca Raton, FL. He was 91. On D day he served as a navigation officer on the USS Quincy. After teaching at Roosevelt University, he spent three decades as vice president of overseas sales for Oil-Dri Corporation of America. In retirement, he moved to Florida, where he ran a mini-orchard of exotic plants. Survivors include his wife, Gertrude; a son; two grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren.
Virginia Allen Stehney, SB’42, an educator, died September 5 in Middleton, CT. She was 87. After serving as a secretary for the Manhattan Project, on which her husband, Andrew Stehney, SB’42, PhD’50, worked, Stehney taught in Downers Grove, IL. In 1963, following several years in Switzerland, she returned to the States and taught elementary school. Survivors include her husband, a daughter, two sons, a sister, and six grandchildren.
Jeanne Hoffheimer Goodfriend, AB’43, died September 7 in Lake Forest, IL. She was 86. Refused permission to serve on the European front during WW II, she became an intelligence specialist in Oregon and California, leaving the Navy as a lieutenant. In 1948 she married Stanley Goodfriend, JD’36. When her husband died in 1975, she took over his residential-development company. Survivors include two daughters, a son, and two grandchildren.
Rae Libin Meltzer, AB’43, AM’59, died September 20 in Washington, DC. She was 86. An adjunct faculty member at the School of Social Service Administration from 1970 to 1982, she was a social worker in Chicago and Dallas before moving to Washington in 1986. A volunteer for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, she translated Yiddish documents and interviewed survivors. Her translations included two books of proverbs, Yiddish Wisdom for Parents and Yiddish Wisdom for Marriage. Survivors include her husband, Jack Meltzer, AM’47; a daughter, Ellen Meltzer, U-High’73; two sons; a brother; a sister; eight grandchildren; and two great-grandsons.
Josephine Pacheco, AM’43, PhD’50, a historian, died August 16 in Falls Church, VA. She was 87. In The Pearl: A Failed Slave Escape on the Potomac, she detailed one of the largest attempted slave escapes in U.S. history. Pacheco taught at the University of Virginia before joining George Mason University in 1968. She retired as a distinguished professor in 1994. Survivors include a daughter, two sons, a brother, seven grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.
Donald “Don” C. Baum, PhB’46, an artist and curator, died October 28 in Evanston, IL. He was 86. Former chair of Roosevelt University’s art department, Baum specialized in assemblage art using found objects. As exhibitions director at the Hyde Park Art Center (1956–72) and instructor at the School of the Art Institute, he helped launch Chicago artists Jim Nutt and Ed Paschke. Survivors include a daughter, Maria Baum, U-High’79; a son, Charles L. Baum, AB’78, SM’83, MD’83; two brothers; a sister; and two grandchildren.
Jeremiah Cameron, AM’46, a teacher, died July 29 in Kansas City, MO. He was 88. A WW II veteran, he returned to his native Kansas City to teach high school and college. Before retiring in 1990, he served nine years on the city’s Board of Parks and Recreation Commissioners and was president of the local NAACP chapter. Survivors include a sister.
Oscar Walchirk, AM’46, an educator, died September 17 in Evanston, IL. He was 88. A WW II veteran, Walchirk joined Chicago Teachers College (now Chicago State University) in 1946, rising to
director of admissions. In 1968 he joined Kennedy-King College's guidance and counseling department. Survivors include his wife, Gitta; two daughters, including Judith D. Kotzin, AM’91; two
stepsons; a stepdaughter; two brothers, including Victor Walchirk, JD'55; five grandchildren; eight step-grandchildren; five great-grandchildren; and a step-great-grandchild.
Sheldon G. Farr, MBA’47, died August 1 in Kenmore, WA. He was 90. A Marine Corps fighter pilot who received an Air Medal, Farr was an accountant for several firms, including Kromona Mines and the Boeing Company. Preceded by his wife of 63 years, Helen, he is survived by three children, including daughter Pamela L. Farr, MST’79; two grandchildren; and a great-granddaughter.
Frank Floyd Gray, PhB’47, SB’49, SM’50, a geologist, died July 7 in Alberta, Canada. He was 82. After working in the New Mexico oilfields, he became a geologist with the Hudson Bay Oil and Gas Company in Calgary, and later served as a consultant. Survivors include his wife, Carol; a daughter; two sons; and a grandson.
Robert A. Nottenburg, AM’47, PhD’50, died August 10 in Evanston, IL. He was 87. A WW II and Korean War veteran, he spent 26 years as an active Naval Reserve officer before retiring as a commander. He then launched a career in higher education. Survivors include his wife, Marilyn (Corn) Nottenburg, AM’48; three daughters; a sister; and two grandchildren.
1950s
Donald E. Musselman, AM’50, died September 20 in St. Petersburg, FL. He was 86. After teaching in Illinois, he moved to the Panama Canal Zone, where he taught high school and college. He also wrote and directed musicals, producing the Panama National Theater’s first bilingual show. He returned to the United States in 1964 and taught humanities courses at Centenary College, Florida Southern College, and St. Petersburg Junior College. Survivors include his wife, Dorles, and three sons.
Margaret “Margie” Reuss, AM’50, an economist and activist, died September 30 in Chicago. She was 88. While working at the Office of Price Administration in Washington, DC, she met her husband and future 14-term Wisconsin Congressman Henry Reuss in 1942. An advocate for the homeless, Reuss taught at Federal City College for 15 years after earning her doctorate in economics from George Washington University. Survivors include two daughters, a son, a sister, seven grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren.
Eugene Dinier Balsley, AB’51, a writer and editor, died July 23 in Washington, PA. He was 80. An Army veteran, he wrote for American Quarterly and the Saturday Evening Post. An editor at the University of Chicago and Michigan State presses, he also edited and directed films. A member of the U of C Alumni Cabinet and the Alumni Schools Committee, Balsley also served as secretary, treasurer, and president of the University of Chicago Club of New York. Survivors include his wife, Maggie; two sons, including John Hotchkiss Balsley, AB’00; a daughter, Sarah Fodor, MST’82, PhD’94; six grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.
Vernon Ruttan, AM’50, PhD’52, an economist, died August 18 in St. Paul, MN. He was 84. Cocreator of the “induced innovation” theory that scarce resources bring about technological change, Ruttan wrote some 200 books and articles. In 1965 he became chair of the University of Minnesota’s agricultural-economics department, teaching there until retirement. Survivors include his wife, Marilyn; three daughters, including Lore M. Ruttan, AB’84; a son; and five grandchildren.
Philip Smyth Haring, AM’53, PhD’54, a political-science professor, died September 27 in Nantucket, MA. He was 92. A veteran of Pearl Harbor, he was an assistant professor at Northwestern while attending Chicago and taught for 26 years at Knox College, retiring in 1980. A student award was created in his honor. Survivors include his wife, Jacqueline; a daughter; and a grandson.
William Raymond Smith, AB’53, AM’59, PhD’61, an intellectual historian, died October 22 in Dillsburg, PA. He was 76. A WW II veteran, he was a Fulbright professor at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands in the late 1960s. After stints at Pennsylvania State University, Haverford College, and Reed College, Smith taught history and philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh for 27 years, retiring professor emeritus. He published more than 100 articles and wrote two books, including The Rhetoric of American Politics. Survivors include two daughters, a sister, and four grandchildren.
Stanley Wallace Standal, PhD’54, a clinical psychologist, died July 6 in Bagywan City, Philippines. He was 86. A WW II veteran and coauthor of Critical Incidents in Psychotherapy (1954), Standal was in private practice for more than 30 years. Standal founded and directed the Deer Creek Institute, an organization for personal growth and development. Survivors include a daughter and a son.
William Brace, AM’56, died October 1 in Oak Park, IL. He was 79. Brace served as an Army clerk before becoming a librarian at Brigham Young University in 1955 and later Chicago Teachers College. He joined the library faculty of Rosary College, now Dominican University, in 1961, retiring professor emeritus in 1998. Survivors include his wife, Phyllis (Mayer) Brace, AM’57.
Darrell Randall, PhD’56, an economist and activist, died August 10 in Washington, DC. He was 92. A former Methodist missionary who traveled to South Africa in the 1940s, Randall spent almost two decades in Johannesburg heading anti-apartheid gatherings. Randall joined American University in 1962 as a professor. Survivors include his wife, Marietta; three sons; a brother; a sister; six grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
Adolfo César Diz, AM’57, PhD’66, an economist, died October 12 in Buenos Aires. He was 77. Diz, who began his career at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, became director of the Universidad Nacional de Tucumán’s Economic Research Institute in 1958. Nine years later he joined the International Monetary Fund. He also directed Mexico’s Centre for Latin American Monetary Studies and headed Argentina’s Central Bank. Survivors include five sons and 12 grandchildren.
Richard A. Weiss, AB’58, a rabbi and educator, died July 19 in Farmington Hills, MI. He was 71. An adjunct professor at the University of Detroit Mercy, Weiss earned an advanced certificate in couples’ therapy and a master’s in social work. Survivors include his wife, Susan, and a daughter.
Elizabeth “Betty” (Fenton) Slattery, AM’59, a nurse, died November 12, 2007, in Naperville, IL. She was 82. Slattery worked 28 years as a nurse in the Chicago Public Schools, retiring from Senn High. Active in Friendship Force, an international organization that promotes goodwill, she visited 58 countries. Survivors include a stepson and two grandchildren.
1960s
Charles Newman Adams Jr., AB’61, a defense intelligence analyst, died July 24 in Fort Washington, MD. He was 70. Adams did surveillance in Rothwesten, Germany, for three years before joining the Defense Intelligence Agency; he retired as a senior analyst in 2003. Survivors include his wife, Joan; two sons; one daughter; his mother; and a brother.
Thomas B. Johnson, MBA’64, a health-care executive, died May 13 in Marco Island, FL. He was 69. For almost three decades Johnson was a partner at consulting firm Deloitte & Touche. From 1995 to 2001, he was an officer at CNA Financial Corporation. Survivors include his wife, Kathie; a daughter; a son, Daniel Bartlett Johnson, MBA’96; his mother; and five grandchildren.
Joel Stephen Seidenstein, JD’68, an educator, died July 4 in Teaneck, NJ. He was 64. A social-studies and constitutional-law teacher at the Bronx High School of Science, in 2001 he founded Bike the Big Apple company, which leads guided tours of New York. Survivors include his wife, Susan; one daughter; two sons; and a sister.
Audrey M. Borth, PhD’69, an educator and psychologist, died July 4 in Pleasant Prairie, WI. She was 81. Borth taught at the U of C Lab Schools, Lake Forest College, and Barat College before she became a partner at the Counseling Associates of Lake Forest. In 1971 she won an Outstanding Educator in America Award, and in 1980 was named to the Marquis Who’s Who of American Women. She is survived by her life partner, Marilyn Ford.
Odon George Knight, AM’69, a Presbyterian minister and affordable-housing advocate, died of gastric cancer August 18 in Alexandria, VA. He was 65. A former associate pastor at Chicago’s St. Paul’s United Church of Christ, Knight was executive director of the Bickerdike Redevelopment Corp. in Chicago. In 1973 he moved to Virginia and joined the Neighborhood Reinvestment Corp. (now NeighborWorks America), serving as executive director from 1990 until 2000. Survivors include his wife, Kathleen; a son; a daughter; four grandchildren; and a sister.
1970s
Johnnie Lassiter Dyson, AM’70, died September 5 in Chicago. She was 63. Dyson worked for the Elgin Board of Education as a therapist before joining the Chicago Board of Education in 1975. In 1989 she launched JD & Associates, a psychological consulting firm that grew to three Chicago locations. Survivors include a daughter, Monica Dionne Dyson, U-High’91; her mother; two brothers; a sister; and a granddaughter.
Debra Ann Frei-Lahr, MD’79, an oncologist, died of cancer August 6 in Jackson, MS. She was 54. A specialist in bone-marrow transplantation, she started her practice in Charleston, SC, where she was associate professor at the Medical University of South Carolina and directed the bone-marrow–transplant service. Survivors include her husband, Christopher Lahr, MD’79; a daughter; a son; her parents; four brothers, including Gary Frei, MD’78; and two sisters, including Virginia Frei, MD’81.
1980s
Barbara Converse Johnson, MBA’81, died of brain cancer October 12 in Roxbury, NY. She was 53. Johnson worked in finance in New York City before moving to Margaretville, NY, where she began a healing-arts career. She opened a massage practice and volunteered with organizations such as CROP, an after-school gardening program. Survivors include her partner, Carl Pickhardt, and his son; her mother; two brothers; and a sister.
2000s
Joshua Anderson Williams, AB’07, died September 3 in Cleveland Heights, OH. He was 24. A 2003 graduate of Massachusetts’s Northfield Mount Hermon School, Williams graduated with honors from Chicago with a concentration in history, philosophy, and social studies of science and medicine. Survivors include his parents, a brother, a sister, and three grandparents.
Wei Ren, SM’06, died November 16 in Chicago. He was 26. After attending high school in Shanghai, Ren was valedictorian of his Colgate University class and was a year away from completing his mathematics PhD. Along with teaching a section of first-year calculus, he coedited a math book for high-school students with Chicago professor Paul Sally and taught gifted Chicago Public Schools students. Survivors include his parents.