Deaths
Faculty and Staff
John Callaway, founding director of the University of Chicago’s William Benton Fellowship Program, died June 23 in Racine, WI. He was 72. He was a newsman with the wire service City News Bureau, later becoming a vice president of CBS Radio and host of the public-policy program Conversations from Wingspread. In 1974 he joined WTTW as news director. The host of Chicago Tonight for 15 years, followed by Friday Night and Chicago Stories, he interviewed luminaries such as novelist John Updike, composer Aaron Copland, and physician Jonas Salk. Recipient of 16 Emmys and a Peabody Award, Callaway also received the University’s Benton Medal for distinguished public service for his fellowship program, which provided support to mid-career radio and TV broadcasters. He is survived by his wife, Sandra; two daughters; and four stepchildren.
Milton Ehre, a professor emeritus in Slavic languages and literatures, died June 30 in Oak Park, IL. He was 76. Ehre taught junior high and high school in New York before joining the Chicago faculty in 1967. An expert on 19th-century Russian drama, he translated Chekhov and Gogol plays later performed at the Goodman Theater and Court Theatre and on the BBC. Winner of a 1999 Quantrell Award for undergraduate teaching and a member of the Slavic and East European Journal’s editorial board, he was a Fulbright-Hays and a Guggenheim fellow. He is survived by his wife, Roberta; two daughters; and three grandchildren.
Miriam Elson, AM’42, chief psychiatric social worker at the University’s Student Mental Health Clinic, died May 6 in Chicago. She was 99. Instrumental in expanding the discipline of clinical social work, she helped create the clinic, where she worked for more than 20 years. From 1980 to 1994, she taught in the psychiatry department and the School of Social Service Administration. Author of Self Psychology in Clinical Social Work, she received the SSA’s inaugural Charlotte Toll Medal, a Lifetime Contribution Award from the International Council for Self Psychology, and a Professional Achievement Award from the University’s Alumni Association. She was predeceased by her husband, Alex Elson, PhB’26, JD’28. Survivors include a daughter, Karen O’Neil, U-High’54; five grandchildren; and 11 great-grandchildren.
Richard Hellie, AB’58, AM’60, PhD’65, a professor of Russian history, died April 24 in Chicago. He was 71. The Thomas E. Donnelly professor in history, Hellie joined the Chicago faculty in 1966 and chaired the College’s Russian-civilization program. In 1984 he received the University of Chicago Press’s Gordon J. Laing Prize for his 1982 book, Slavery in Russia, 1450–1725. His 1972 book, Enserfment and Military Change in Muscovy, won the American Historical Association’s Herbert Baxter Adams Prize. A past editor of the journal Russian History, he cofounded the University’s Russian Studies Workshop and directed its Slavic, East European/Russian, and Eurasian Studies Center from 1997 to 2004. He is survived by his wife, Shujie, IMB’02; two sons; a stepdaughter; and a sister.
Peter Homans, AM’62, PhD’64, professor emeritus of psychology and religious studies, died May 30 in Evanston, IL. He was 78. Renowned for his work on mourning, Homans joined the Divinity School faculty in 1965 and taught social science and the history of religion until his 2001 retirement. With joint appointments in the Committee on Human Development and the Committee on the History of Culture, he wrote three books, including The Ability to Mourn: Disillusionment and the Social Origins of Psychoanalysis (1989). He is survived by his wife, Celia; daughters Jennifer Homans, U-High X’78, Patricia Dillon, U-High’81, and Elizabeth Homans, U-High’83; and six grandchildren.
Harold Richman, AM’61, PhD’69, the Hermon Dunlap Smith professor emeritus of social-welfare policy and founding director of the policy research center Chapin Hall, died July 30 in Chicago. He was 72. After serving as special assistant to the U.S. secretary of labor, Richman joined the School of Social Service Administration’s faculty in 1967. The next year he helped found SSA’s Center for the Study of Welfare Policy in Washington (now the Center for the Study of Social Policy and no longer affiliated with the University). Named dean of the SSA in 1969, during his nine-year tenure he helped expand the school’s curriculum and increased student aid. At Chapin Hall (1985–2001), he transformed the former orphanage into a research institution focused on child policy and development. In 2008 Chapin Hall established a postdoctoral research fellowship in Richman’s honor. He is survived by his wife, Marlene; two sons, Andrew Richman, U-High’86, and Robert Richman, U-High’88; his mother, Rebecca Richman, PhB’29; a sister; and four grandchildren.
William Ferguson Sibley, PhD’71, an associate professor emeritus in East Asian languages and civilizations, died of lung cancer May 7 in Chicago. He was 67. Known for his book The Shiga Hero (1979), a critical analysis of Japanese writer Shiga Naoya’s short stories, he spent nine years at the University of Michigan before becoming an associate professor of Japanese literature at Chicago. Sibley chaired the department twice before retiring in 2000. When he died, he was translating a trilogy by Japanese writer Natsume Soseki. Survivors include a sister and two nephews.
1920s
Maude Buckley, PhB’27, died April 8 in Dallas. She was 110. A longtime Dallas resident, Buckley volunteered with the Children’s Medical Center and was active in local organizations. Before her husband’s death in 1982, the couple traveled extensively. Survivors include two daughters, four grandchildren, and seven great-grandchildren.
1930s
Irving Wolfe, PhB’34, died January 31 in Pomona, NY. He was 95. Wolfe owned a maintenance business, operating primarily in Hudson County, NJ. A civil-rights advocate, he participated in several peace marches and defied the U.S. embargo against Cuba 16 times to bring humanitarian aid to the island. He is survived by his wife, Evelyn.
Philip C. White, U-High X’30, SB’35, PhD’38, a chemist, died May 1 in Burr Ridge, IL. He was 96. White worked for Amoco Oil Company for 37 years before retiring as vice president of research and development in 1975. He then worked in Washington as an assistant administrator for fossil fuels at the Energy Research and Development Administration. When the ERDA became the Department of Energy in 1977, he stayed on briefly and then became a consultant. White received both the University’s 1968 Public Service Citation and its 1989 Alumni Service Citation. He is survived by his wife, Virginia, U-High’35; two sons, including Timothy White, MBA’67; a daughter, Catharine O’Rourke, MBA’77; four grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
David Saxe, AB’36, died February 9 in Cupertino, CA. He was 93. A research-and-development administrator, he held senior management positions with the Atomic Energy Commission at Argonne, Atomics International in Los Angeles, and the Electric Power Research Institute in Palo Alto, CA. A board member of several charitable and civic organizations, Saxe won honors for his work at the Atomic Energy Commission. He was predeceased by his wife, Adele Rose Saxe, AB’39. Survivors include three children; his sister, Mirel (Saxe) Linch, AB’40; and four grandchildren.
James Purdy, AM’37, a novelist, died March 13 in Englewood, NJ. He was 94. An Army veteran, he taught at Lawrence College in Wisconsin until 1953, later publishing several short stories and nearly 20 novels, including Malcolm (1959) and The Nephew (1961). Known for his dark comic style, he was praised by writers such as Dorothy Parker, Tennessee Williams, and Gore Vidal. The collection James Purdy: Selected Plays was released posthumously in June.
Sidney Meyer Gunther, AB’39, died May 30 in San Diego. He was 92. A WW II veteran who served in China with the Flying Tigers, he rose to the rank of master sergeant and first lieutenant with the Judge Advocate General Corps. Gunther practiced law in Chicago for many years before retiring to California. He was predeceased by his wife, Eleanor Cohen, AB’39. Survivors include three children, a brother, five grandchildren, and a great-grandson.
1940s
Howard Israelstam, X’42, died June 16 in Dallas. He was 88. A U.S. Postal Service employee for 25 years, he was a postal inspector and a business-process analyst. Israelstam mastered the Internet at the age of 80, using genealogy sites to trace his relatives back to Ellis Island. Survivors include a sister.
William H. Russell, U-High’39, AB’42, AM’47, died May 6 in Pittsburgh. He was 85. A WW II veteran, in 1954 he joined the history faculty at Pennsylvania’s Geneva College, where he later became dean of the college. Retiring professor emeritus in 1985, Russell spent the next decade teaching church history and working as an administrator at the Reformed Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Pittsburgh. A 40-year elder in the College Hill Reformed Presbyterian Church, he also served on local boards and delivered Meals on Wheels. He is survived by his wife, Martha; a daughter; and a son.
Bernard Walsh Mehren, who received a professional certificate in meteorology from the University in 1944, died May 29 in Rancho Santa Fe, CA. He was 94. During WW II he served in the Army Air Corps, where he helped discover and document the concept of jet streams, and received the Air Medal. He then worked as a chemical engineer, including a post as chief chemist at the Squirt Beverage Company in San Diego. As founder and chair of PM Chemical Company, he invented several detergent and cleaning formulas. Survivors include three sons, six grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.
Perez Zagorin, AB’44, died April 26 in Washington. He was 88. An expert on the 17th-century English Revolution, he wrote several books, including A History of Political Thought in the English Revolution (1954). He taught at Amherst and Vassar colleges before his left-wing views prompted him to immigrate to Canada during the McCarthy era. He taught a decade at McGill University, returning to the States to teach at Johns Hopkins and for 25 years at the University of Rochester, where he chaired the history department. Since 1992 he had been a research fellow at the University of Virginia’s Edgar F. Shannon Center for Advanced Studies. He is survived by a son, a brother, and two grandsons.
Hadassah Ziskin, AB’45, AM’47, died June 9 in Phoenix. She was 83. A longtime member of Beth El Congregation, she served as local president of Hadassah and also sat on the Hillel board at Arizona State University. She was predeceased by her husband, Harold Ziskin, SB’50. She is survived by two daughters, including Deborah Ziskin, AB’74, MBA’74; a son; and five grandchildren.
Virginia “Ginger” Kuper, AB’46, died May 6 in Cleveland. She was 84. In the 1950s Kuper and her husband, Alan, U-High’42, PhB’47, SB’49, moved to Millburn, NJ, where Kuper exhibited her ceramics work. Moving to Cleveland Heights, OH, she was an administrative assistant for the Cleveland Orchestra, a children’s reading mentor, and a secretary for the group Performers and Artists for Nuclear Disarmament. Survivors include two daughters, a son, and five grandchildren.
Valerie Kopecky Craig, MBA’48, died April 22 in La Jolla, CA. She was 82. An American Red Cross worker during World War II, Craig worked for the University of Chicago Alumni Association while her husband, Harmon Craig, X’47, SM’50, PhD’51 (who died in 2003), was in graduate school. She then served as a chief operating officer for her husband at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. In 1972 she coauthored a paper about Greek marbles. Survivors include three daughters, a brother, and four grandchildren.
Helga (Regensteiner) Sinaiko, U-High’45, AB’48, died in June in Chicago. She was 80. A longtime resident of Hyde Park, she founded the Hyde Park Garden Fair in 1969. She also served on the boards of the Harper Court Foundation and the Hyde Park Neighborhood Club. She directed the Sinai Temple Nursery School from 1965 to 1973 before joining the Sojourner Truth Child Care Center as executive director. During the 1980s Sinaiko worked for the City of Chicago, launching an initiative to offer Head Start programs in homeless shelters. She was predeceased by her second husband, Lambert Botts, AM’50. Survivors include her first husband, Herman Sinaiko, AB’47, PhD’61; daughter Eve Sinaiko, U-High’73, X’76; two sons, including David Sinaiko, U-High’80; and four grandchildren.
William Leslie Sharp, PhB’48, AM’49, died May 29 in Swampscott, MA. He was 84. A WW II veteran, he taught at the University of California, Riverside, creating the school’s drama program and serving as department chair (1954–64). He later taught at Stanford University, where he cofounded the Stanford Repertory Theater; Middlebury College; and Emerson College, where he retired professor emeritus in 1994. He directed some 50 productions and was also a professional actor. Survivors include two daughters, a son, a brother, a sister, and three grandchildren.
1950s
Harold Ziskin, SB’50, a chemist, died November 5, 2008, in Phoenix. He was 92. A WW II veteran, he owned and operated Midas Muffler Shops in the Phoenix area for more than 25 years. A 48-year member of Beth El Congregation, he was active in local Jewish organizations. His wife, Hadassah, AB’45, AM’47, died this past June. He is survived by two daughters, including Deborah Ziskin, AB’74, MBA’74; a son; and five grandchildren.
Harvey J. Feldman, AB’51, AM’54, died February 24 in Arlington, VA. He was 77. Feldman spent three decades at the State Department and served as an ambassador to Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. A recipient of the State Department’s Distinguished Service Award, he helped organize Richard Nixon’s 1972 trip to China, cowrote the Taiwan Relations Act, and was executive director of a presidential commission to create Radio Free Asia. In 1990 he joined consulting firm Global Business Access and later became a distinguished fellow in China policy at the Heritage Foundation. He is survived by his wife, Laura Sherman; three sons; a sister; three grandchildren; and a great-granddaughter.
Richard M. Eastman, U-High’33, AM’49, PhD’52, died June 17 in Naperville, IL. He was 92. A WW II veteran, he taught creative writing and literature at North Central College for 36 years, also serving as dean of faculty, vice president for academic affairs, and chair of the general-studies department. In retirement Eastman performed on the recorder with the West Winds ensemble, which he cofounded. Survivors include three daughters.
Ned Brian Sudborough, AB’52, died May 5 in Santa Fe, NM. He was 79. An Army veteran, he ran a summer business leading camping trips in the American Southwest. He also taught English in New York State for several years before taking an extended leave to design and build an adobe house in Santa Fe for his family. Survivors include four daughters, two sons, a brother, and three grandchildren.
Ellsworth Charles McClenachan, AB’54, SM’55, died September 3, 2008, in Greenwich, CT. He was 74. After posts at American Cyanamid and Miller Stephenson Chemical, he started the R. H. Carlson company to develop lubricants and adhesives for aerospace and electronic industries. He later launched a chemical consultancy and was vice chair of venture-capital firm Connecticut Innovations Technology Committee, which honored him with a Distinguished Service Award in 2003 and created an annual award in his honor. McClenachan also served on the advisory board of the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund. He is survived by his wife, Sue; a son; and two grandsons.
Hanne Maria Sonquist, AB’54, AB’59, died May 31 in Santa Barbara, CA. She was 77. While teaching at the University of California, Santa Barbara’s Graduate School of Education, she helped design its early-childhood curriculum and cofounded Santa Barbara’s Centro Familiar State Preschool. In 1974 she joined the Santa Barbara City College faculty and spent the next 23 years as director of the Starr King Parent-Child Workshop. Sonquist later received her marriage- and family-therapy certification and opened a private practice that she continued until this year. Her community honors included two local Woman of the Year awards. She is survived by her husband, John Sonquist, AB’51, PhD’69; two daughters; a son; a brother; and five grandchildren.
Harold W. Pfautz, AM’47, PhD’54, a sociologist, died April 15 in Rhode Island. He was 90. A WW II veteran, he studied race relations and collective behavior at Brown University. During the civil-rights movement, Pfautz fought for the desegregation of Providence’s schools and was the first director of Brown’s cooperative program with Mississippi’s Tougaloo College. Retiring professor emeritus in the 1980s, he was editor of the American Sociologist and a fellow of the American Sociological Association. He is survived by his wife, Iola; two sons; and two grandchildren, Michael Pfautz, ’10, and Anna Pfautz, ’13.
Edwin McClellan, PhD’57, a professor of East Asian languages and literature, died April 27 in Hamden, CT. He was 83. McClellan’s 1957 translation of Natsume Soseki’s Kokoro introduced the modern Japanese author to the West. After teaching English at Chicago, in 1959 he was asked to create a Japanese-studies program. He became professor and founding chair of the Department of Far Eastern Languages and Civilizations in 1965 and later was named the Carl Darling Buck professor. In 1972 he left for Yale, where he twice chaired the East Asian languages and literature department and was appointed Sumitomo professor of Japanese studies. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, McClellan was honored by the Japanese government with the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon, in 1998. Survivors include a son, a daughter, and five grandsons.
Robert Byron Wilson, AB’59, died May 18 in East Dundee, IL. He was 72. An Army veteran, he helped seek out Nazi war criminals in Germany. He spent nearly two decades as a packaging executive with International Paper before joining Elgin Corrugated Box Company as CEO and vice president in 1981. He headed the company until this past March. Survivors include his partner, Shirley Solberg; two daughters; a son, Michael Wilson, AB’98; and two grandchildren.
1960s
Christopher McCarthy, AB’60, AM’63, an Olympic racewalker, died April 22 in Chicago. He was 77. An Army veteran, McCarthy picked up racewalking in college and won the 1963 and 1964 Amateur Athletic Union championships. He qualified for the 1964 Tokyo Summer Olympics and finished 21st in the 50-kilometer event. Returning to Chicago, he taught English as a second language. An avid reader and biker, he completed two 100-mile bike rides last year. He is survived by his wife, Betty McCarthy, AB’58.
1980s
Keith Fleming, X’84, died April 19 in Providence, RI. He was 49. Fleming joined the staff of the New York Review of Books in the mid-1980s. He later published two critically acclaimed books, a memoir of his adolescence titled The Boy with the Thorn in His Side (2000) and Original Youth (2003), a biography about his uncle, novelist Edmund White. He is survived by his partner, Maria Tulokas; his mother; a brother; and a sister.
Arielle Hart, AB’88, died of lung cancer January 15 in New York. She was 42. A nonsmoker, Hart earned her medical degree at Tel Aviv University’s Sackler Medical School and left medical practice to raise her three children. She is survived by her husband, Michael; two daughters; a son; her father and stepmother; and two brothers.
1990s
Silvio Barbato, AM’95, a conductor, died June 1 in the crash of Air France Flight 447. He was 50. At age 25 the native Italian became the youngest conductor in Brazil to direct a complete opera, Puccini’s Tosca. He was musical director of the Brasilia National Theatre Symphony Orchestra for several years before joining Rio’s Teatro Municipal as director in 2002. Winner of the Brazilian government’s Cultural Medal, he also composed two operas. He is survived by his partner, Antonella Pareschi; a son; and a daughter.
Tonisha Harvey, AB’99, died March 17 in Hazel Crest, IL. She was 35. After earning a law degree, she pursued an MBA with a focus on school administration. Harvey worked as an elementary-school teacher and ran for local political office. Survivors include her mother and brother.
2000s
Andrew Swanson, MD’00, an orthopedic surgeon, died June 11 in a mountain-climbing accident on Alaska’s Mount McKinley. He was 36. Fellow climber John Mislow, PhD’02, MD’04, also died. After completing his residency at New York’s Hospital for Special Surgery, Swanson did a fellowship in spinal surgery at Minneapolis’s Twin Cities Spine Center and another in Europe with the Cervical Spine Research Society. He then joined the Orthopaedic and Fracture Clinic in Mankato, MN. Each year Swanson volunteered in Ghana, treating children with spine deformities. In 2000 he received the Denali Pro Award for safety, self-sufficiency, and aiding other climbers. Survivors include his parents, two sisters, and a brother.
John Mislow, PhD’02, MD’04, a neurosurgeon, died June 11 in a mountain-climbing accident on Alaska’s Mount McKinley. He was 39. Fellow climber Andrew Swanson, MD’00 (see above), also died. A geophysics and environmental-conservation researcher before medical school, Mislow was a fifth-year neurosurgery resident at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. An experienced mountaineer, he received the 2000 Denali Pro Award for safety, self-sufficiency, and aiding other climbers. He is survived by his wife, Linda Wang, MD’00; two sons; his parents; and a brother.