Deaths
Faculty and Staff
Malcolm J. Casadaban, associate professor in molecular genetics and cell biology and of microbiology, died after exposure to a weakened laboratory strain of disease-causing bacteria September 13 in Chicago. He was 60. As a Harvard graduate student in the early 1970s, he developed techniques to isolate specific bacterial genes, which became key tools in genetic analysis. Joining Chicago in 1980, he became a member of the Committee on Virology (now the Department of Microbiology) five years later. In 1988, with two former students, he started Thermogen, a company that commercialized discoveries from his research; Thermogen was bought by MediChem in 2000. Casadaban was survived by his fiancée, Casia Holmgren; two daughters, Brooke Casadaban, U-High’99, and Leigh Casadaban, U-High’06; his parents; two brothers; and four sisters.
Anna Lisa Crone, professor of Slavic languages and literatures, died of cancer June 19 in Chicago. She was 63. Crone taught at the University for 30 years, publishing a landmark literary study on Russian philosopher Vasilii Rozanov in 1978. The next year she founded Slavic Forum, an annual graduate-student conference. The winner of a 1985 Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching and a 2000 Faculty Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching, in 2000 she was honored by the American Association of Teachers of Slavic and East European Languages. Retiring from the classroom in 2006, she continued her research and was at work on a monograph of Russian modernism’s philosophies of eros. She is survived by her husband, Vladimir Donchik; her daughter Liliana Donchik, U-High’93; her parents; and two sisters.
Adrian Katz, professor emeritus of medicine, died August 17 in Chicago. He was 77. An expert on kidney function and kidney-disease treatment, Katz joined the University in 1968. He was recruited to establish a dialysis program that led to the kidney-transplantation program—one of the nation’s first. He conducted pioneering research on how kidneys regulate sodium, potassium, and water in the body. Katz was named professor in 1975, a post he held until his 2002 retirement. His honors included a 2002 Lifetime of Service Award from the Kidney Foundation of Illinois and the Pritzker School of Medicine’s Gold Key Award. He is survived by his wife, Miriam Katz, AM’77; a daughter, Iris E. Katz, U-High’87; and a granddaughter.
Leszek Kolakowski, professor emeritus in the John U. Nef Committee on Social Thought and in philosophy, died July 18 in Oxford, England. He was 81. Kolakowski’s critiques of Marxism helped hasten communism’s fall in his native Poland. A professor at the University of Warsaw until he was forced out for criticizing Stalinism in 1968, he taught at Oxford before joining Chicago in 1981, teaching at the University part time until his 1994 retirement. Kolakowski wrote more than 30 books, including a three-volume history of Marxism and Modernity on Endless Trial, which won the University Press’s 1992 Gordon J. Laing Award for best faculty book. Awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 1983, he later won the Library of Congress’s first John W. Kluge Prize. Survivors include his wife, Tamara; and a daughter.
1930s
Rose Director Friedman, PhB’32, an economist, died August 18 in Davis, CA. She was 98. A collaborator on three books, including Capitalism and Freedom (1962), with her husband, economist Milton Friedman, AM’33, she helped champion the idea of the free market. Rose Friedman held posts at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and the National Resources Committee, where she studied consumer purchases. Research conducted with her husband played a key role in several national decisions, such as ending the dollar peg to gold in the 1970s and eliminating the military draft. She was predeceased by her husband in 2006. Survivors include a daughter, Janet F. Martel, U-High’60; a son, David D. Friedman, U-High’61, SM’68, PhD’72; four grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.
Joseph Kallick, PhB’34, died October 31, 2008, in Glenview, IL. He was 95. After graduation and between WW II and the Korean War, when Kallick served in the U.S. government’s Office of Price Administration and the Office of Price Stabilization, he worked for the Spiegel Company. He went on to do direct mail and marketing at several companies. Kallick was also a founding member of Congregation Solel in Highland Park. Survivors include a daughter, a son, and four grandchildren.
Nathan R. Brewer, PhD’36, died June 16 in Bethesda, MD. He was 104. A veterinarian, Brewer left private practice in 1948 to found the University’s A. J. Carlson Animal Research Facility, where his standards were the basis of the Association for Assessment and Accreditation of Laboratory Animal Care. A consulting veterinarian at the Lincoln Park Zoo, Brewer was the first president of the American Association of Laboratory Science, which later named its top scientific award after him. Retiring from Chicago in 1968, he continued to consult, and in 2001 he won the American Veterinary Medical Association’s Animal Welfare Award. He is survived by his wife, Jean; three daughters, including Sandra Ginsberg, AB’68, MD’72; four grandchildren, including Alexander Ginsberg, JD’06; and three great-grandchildren.
Joseph H. Levin, SM’37, PhD’40, died July 14 in Chestnut Hill, MA. He was 93. A WW II veteran, he worked in early computer technology. He later spent several years at Honeywell. He is survived by his wife, Molly; and three sons.
J. Fred Weston, AB’37, MBA’42, PhD’48, an economist, died July 20 in Los Angeles. He was 93. Known for his research on mergers and acquisitions, Weston helped develop finance as a key subfield of economics. After serving in the Army in its finance department, he taught briefly at Chicago before joining the University of California, Los Angeles, faculty in 1949. Recipient of UCLA’s 1978 Outstanding Teacher Award, he was appointed the Cordner chair in money and financial markets in 1982 and retired four years later. He continued to research and teach, receiving the Dean’s Special Award for outstanding achievement in instruction in 1994. Former president of the American Finance Association, in 2008 Weston received UCLA’s Dickson Emeritus Professorship Award. Survivors include a daughter and two sons.
Elizabeth E. Abler, U-High’34, AB’38, died July 29 in Libertyville, IL. She was 91. An accredited judge for the American Rose Society, Abler wrote Secrets of the Miniature Rose. In 1994 a miniature-rose variety was named after her. Survivors include a daughter; a son, William Abler, U-High X’61; and two grandchildren.
Robert J. Greenebaum, AB’39, an economist, died March 13 in Highland Park, IL. He was 91. An employee of Inland Steel Company for 30 years, he retired in 1981 as treasurer. A longtime University volunteer, he was a lifetime member of the College and Student Activities Visiting Committee, a reunion volunteer, and a member of the Athletics Hall of Fame selection committee, and in 1992 he received the Alumni Association’s Alumni Service Citation. Survivors include his wife, Nancy; two daughters; a son, Robert J. Greenebaum Jr., MBA’84; six grandchildren; and a great-grandson.
Carl Henry Liachowitz, SB’39, died March 16 in Boynton Beach, FL. He was 79. After serving in the Air Force from 1951 to 1955, Liachowitz operated Jonas-Liachowitz & Associates and retired after 30 years with the firm. He is survived by his wife, Phyllis; a daughter; a son; and three grandchildren.
Martin Dole Miller, AB’39, MBA’48, died June 26 in Burr Ridge, IL. He was 92. A WW II veteran, he worked for the J. L. Jacobs public-administration firm in Chicago. A consultant from 1976 until his 1991 retirement, he specialized in property-tax administration and appraisal. Miller was a trustee and president of the Village of Hinsdale. Survivors include two daughters, including Elizabeth Miller-Sinclair, MBA’79; two sons, including Martin Peter Miller, MBA’74; nine grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.
Phyllis Zoe Silvertrust Sandock, AB’39, died May 6 in Tucson, AZ. She was 90. A painter, she created works in oil, watercolor, and other media. Survivors include a daughter, Mollie Sandock, AM’76, AM’79, PhD’85; a son; two grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
Mary Smith Fairbanks Shackelford, SB’39, died August 1, 2008, in San Diego. She was 90. Shackelford served in Iran during WW II and did a tour in the Pacific, where she worked on troop transports ferrying military personnel back to the States. After the war she taught elementary school in the Los Angeles Unified School District for 30 years. Survivors include three sons and five grandchildren.
1940s
Theron L. Hopple, MD’42, a neurosurgeon, died June 30 in Sylvania, OH. He was 92. A WW II veteran, he ran Sylvania’s only neurosurgery group practice and was chief of staff at St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center and Mercy and St. Luke’s hospitals. A former president of the Academy of Medicine of Toledo and Lucas County, he retired in 1979. He is survived by his wife, Lorraine Hopple, X’43; three daughters; a son; ten grandchildren; and 11 great-grandchildren.
Virginia Noel Edwards Johnson, AB’42, JD’44, died January 18 in Hinsdale, IL. She was 88. A former elementary-school teacher, Johnson practiced law starting in the 1960s, taught full time at Wilson Junior College (now Kennedy-King College), and did legal tax work with Chicago’s Mason Tax Service. In 1968 she joined the Daley College faculty, later chairing the business department until 1992. She then practiced full time as a defense attorney, handling both civil and criminal cases. She was predeceased by her three husbands, Lumir Brazda; Philip Johnson; and Richard L. Samuels, AB’44, JD’50. Survivors include a daughter, Lois L. Brazda, U-High’67, MBA’73; a son, Brian Brazda, U-High’65; and two stepdaughters. [This corrects an obituary in the July–Aug/09 issue.—Ed.]
Bernice Bershad, AB’44, died July 6 in Chicago. She was 87. After working as a radio writer on the West Coast, Bershad moved back to the Chicago area, where she spent several years working for Neiman Marcus. Survivors include three daughters; two brothers, including Leonard Dorin, AB’56, MBA’57; a sister; and four grandchildren.
Sylvia C. Levy, AM’44, died June 29 in Silver Spring, MD. She was 86. A State Department researcher for the Nuremberg war-crimes trials, Levy then settled in Washington with her husband, Albert Levy, PhD’44, a Nuremberg assistant prosecutor. Born without a right arm, she volunteered with soldier amputees at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Levy was a master bridge player, teaching bridge classes during the ’80s and ’90s. Her husband died in 1988. Survivors include a daughter, Janet Levy, AM’79; two sons; and two grandchildren.
Thomas W. Stern, AA’43, SB’47, a geologist, died May 23 in Bend, OR. He was 86. The WW II veteran spent 41 years at the U.S. Geological Survey, investigating Colorado Plateau uranium deposits. He retired as chief of isotope geology in 1989. A fellow of the Geological Society of America and the Mineralogical Society of America, he received the Department of the Interior’s Meritorious Service Award. Survivors include a stepdaughter; a brother, John A. Stern, SB’39; a sister; a granddaughter; and a great-granddaughter.
Jack C. Ellis, AM’48, died July 16 in Evanston, IL. He was 87. A WW II veteran, he joined Northwestern University’s radio and television department in 1956 and launched the school’s film program. Named a professor in 1966, Ellis served five years as department chair and directed film-history summer seminars for the National Endowment for the Humanities. A founding member of the Society for Cinema Studies (now the Society for Cinema and Media Studies) and the group’s president from 1970 to 1972, he wrote six books on film history and pedagogy. Ellis is survived by his wife, Sue; two sons; a sister; and six grandchildren.
Beryl W. Sprinkel, MBA’48, PhD’52, an economist, died August 22 in Beecher, IL. He was 85. A WW II veteran, he taught economics at the University of Missouri and Chicago before joining Harris Trust and Savings Bank in 1952, where he rose to executive vice president and chief economist, retiring in 1981. During the Reagan administration he served as undersecretary of the Treasury for monetary affairs and chaired the Council of Economic Advisers, crafting the White House’s response to the 1987 stock-market crash. Author of Money and Markets: A Monetarist View and winner of a 1964 Alumni Association Public Service Citation and a 1986 Chicago Booth Distinguished Alumnus Award, Sprinkel later returned to the city of Chicago as a consultant. He is survived by his wife, Lory; a son; a stepdaughter; a stepson; and several grandchildren.
Richard Freeman, AB’49, a champion bridge player, died June 29 in Atlanta. He was 75. Freeman earned his bachelor’s at age 15 and three years later became the youngest life master of the American Contract Bridge League. In 1963 he moved to Atlanta, where he worked as an account executive and financial adviser at Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. Over the course of his bridge career, he won three world championships and more than 30 North American championships; Freeman was inducted into the American Contract Bridge League’s hall of fame in 2001. He is survived by his wife, Louise; two stepdaughters; a sister; and two stepgrandchildren.
1950s
Thomas Howard Gerard, MBA’50, died August 20 in Miami. He was 87. A WW II veteran, he brought air conditioning to Miami Beach homes, restaurants, and businesses. With his brother, Gerard invented equipment to test and measure AC units, a venture that led to TIF Instruments, a 600-employee company that became the largest international manufacturer of leak detectors and other AC instruments. He is survived by his wife, Suzanne; two sons; and a brother.
Ashton “Ash” Stevens Krug, AB’50, MBA’55, died June 28 in Carlisle, PA. He was 79. A graduate of the Naval Supply Corps School, he served on the USS Pickaway during the Korean War. He then joined IBM, where he worked for 35 years. He is survived by his wife, Helga; a daughter; two sons; a brother, Ernest John Krug II, AB’61; and four grandsons.
Paul Hoover Bowman, PhD’51, a clinical psychologist, died December 5, 2008, in Lenexa, KS. He was 94. Bowman volunteered for two years helping Spanish Civil War refugees and doing relief projects in South America and Asia before joining the University of Louisville faculty. From 1952 to 1962, he worked in Quincy, IL, as chief consultant to the Youth Development Commission, under contract to the University. As a researcher Bowman studied populations such as school dropouts, war victims, and the mentally ill. He spent the last part of his career as executive director of the University of Missouri–Kansas City’s Institute for Community Studies. Survivors include his wife, Evelyn; a daughter; a son; a sister; and two grandchildren.
Louis Crompton, AM’51, PhD’54, a pioneer in gay studies, died July 11 in El Cerrito, CA. He was 84. In 1955 Crompton joined the English department at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, where he worked until his 1989 retirement. A Bernard Shaw expert, Crompton wrote Shaw the Dramatist, which won the national Phi Beta Kappa Christian Gauss Award for literary criticism. He also helped launch the Gay and Lesbian Caucus of the Modern Language Association. His 2003 book, Homosexuality and Civilization, won the Bonnie Zimmerman and Vern L. Bullough Prize of the Foundation for the Scientific Study of Sexuality. He is survived by his husband, Luis Diaz-Perdomo; and a brother.
Gordon H. S. Scott, AB’52, a lawyer, died August 24 in Boston. He was 76. Scott worked at Kirkland & Ellis in Chicago before serving in the U.S. Navy. He later held posts at the Chicago Legal Assistance Foundation and at Maine law firm Eaton Peabody. Scott served on the Professional Ethics Commission of the Maine Board of Overseers of the Bar. He is survived by his wife, Ann Besser Scott, PhD’69; two daughters; and a granddaughter.
Gloria Gnatz, X’53, died April 28 in Chicago. She was 83. Gnatz worked for several years as a nurse, social worker, and counselor at the El Rincon Center on Chicago’s North Side. A civil-rights activist, she was also a member of the First Unitarian Church. Survivors include her companion, Bernard Frieden; a daughter; two sons; a brother; and seven grandchildren.
Ernest Henry Nickel, PhD’53, died July 18 in Perth, Australia. He was 83. Nickel worked as a mineralogist for the Canadian government until 1971, when he was appointed head of mineralogy at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) in Perth. The mineral Ernienickelite was named after him. Nickel continued to work for the CSIRO after his retirement. He is survived by his wife, Eileen Woodward; and three daughters.
Raymond Ammar, SM’55, PhD’59, a particle physicist, died June 21 in Lawrence, KS. He was 76. A fellow of the American Physical Society, Ammar worked at Chicago’s Enrico Fermi Institute before joining the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory as a visiting scientist in 1960. He taught physics at Northwestern University for nine years, including a stint as resident research associate in the high-energy physics division at Argonne National Laboratory. He then joined the University of Kansas, where he taught for more than four decades, serving as department chair from 1989 to 2003. Survivors include a daughter, a son, a brother, two sisters, and a grandson.
Edward L. Simmons, X’57, died April 24 in Ridgefield, CT. He was 75. Simmons performed in Shakespeare in the Park before joining New York’s WCBS as a producer and director in 1961. There he worked on documentaries, dramas, musicals, and children’s shows. In 1971 Simmons moved to Ridgefield and founded Pilgrim Productions, an independent film- and video-production company. In 2008 he and his son, Christopher, produced a film about Ridgefield’s tercentennial. Simmons is survived by his wife, Merete; a daughter; a son; a brother; and two grandchildren.
1960s
Antonia Marie (Stoll) Orfield, MAT’66, an optometrist, died of breast cancer April 26 in Somerville, MA. She was 67. A leader in behavioral optometry, which uses nonsurgical methods to improve vision, Orfield taught at the New England College of Optometry, practiced at Harvard University Health Service, and ran a private practice. A fellow in the College of Optometrists in Vision Development, she studied vision improvements in grade-school children. Survivors include her husband, Gary Orfield, AM'65, PhD'68; three daughters, including Sonia Orfield, AB’93; four grandchildren; and a brother.
Joseph V. Bugos, MBA’68, died June 11 in Orland Park, IL. He was 73. Bugos began his career with the Jewel grocery chain stocking shelves as a high-school sophomore. Over the next four decades he rose to president, overseeing thousands of employees across the Midwest. An advocate for struggling stores in Chicago, Bugos worked to expand grocery offerings in minority communities. He is survived by his wife, Gerry; three daughters; three sons; and 22 grandchildren.
1970s
Michael Dean Eversmeyer, AB’75, an architect, died of cancer August 2 in Pittsburgh. He was 56. After receiving his master’s from the Tulane University School of Architecture in 1981, Eversmeyer moved to Pittsburgh. He was principal of Michael Eversmeyer Architect PC, which specialized in historic preservation and adaptive reuse. His book of local historic postcards, Pittsburgh: 1900–1945, was published in April. He is survived by his wife, Janna Smith Eversmeyer, AM’79; and two sons.
1980s
Robert L. Short, AM’82, a theologian, died July 6 in Little Rock, AR. He was 76. A Presbyterian minister, Short wrote several books, including the 1965 “popular theology” best-seller The Gospel According to Peanuts. Short also taught and preached at seminaries, schools, and churches around the country, serving as associate pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Brighton (Michigan) and minister of the First Presbyterian Church of Monticello (Arkansas). In 2001 he started his own church, Christianity Without Doom and Gloom, in Little Rock. Survivors include two daughters, a son, a sister, and five grandchildren.
Regina Titunik, AM’83, PhD’91, a political scientist, died July 18 in Honolulu. She was 52. An Army veteran, she researched the role of women in war. Teaching at the University of Zambia, University of Michigan–Dearborn, and, most recently, the University of Hawaii at Hilo, she received several teaching honors, including the 2006 University of Hawaii at Hilo Student Association Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching. She is survived by her husband, Naoto Yoshikawa, AM’85; a son; and two sisters.
1990s
Karen Utterback, MBA’91, died of congestive heart failure August 18 in Chicago. She was 57. An editor for the Government Finance Officers Association, she was active in the Chicago chapter of the International Association of Business Communicators and spent three years as the group’s director of finance before being appointed president in June 2008. An avid sailor, she raced some 17 times from Chicago to Mackinac Island and sat on the board of the Judd Goldman Adaptive Sailing Program.
Carolyn Girod, AB’99, died in a bicycle accident July 8 near Raymond, WA. She was 31. Girod had taught math and environmental studies at Phillips Academy and the Lawrenceville School and worked at Outside the Classroom, a company that develops alcohol-education programs, before joining Buckingham Browne & Nichols in Cambridge, MA, as a math teacher last year. A cyclist, backpacker, and runner, she competed in triathlons, taught Outward Bound courses, helped run a wilderness hostel in New Hampshire, and coached high-school track and cross-country. Survivors include her parents, a brother, and her grandmother.
2000s
Calvin Lee Wee Sing, MBA’03, died during the swimming leg of a triathlon August 2 in Singapore. He was 42. An honors graduate of the National University of Singapore in mechanical engineering and production, Lee joined Deutsche Telekom Asia in 1997, where he served as chief executive officer. He is survived by a wife and daughter.