Obituaries

Jean Henrich ’32, a longtime art instructor at the Buffalo Seminary and an accomplished painter and sculptor, passed away on December 24, 2002 in her home in Amherst after a brief illness. She was 93.

Born Jean MacKay in Halifax, Nova Scotia, she studied art throughout the world. She attended the Art Institute of Chicago and received a B.A. degree from Antioch College, where she began sculpting with bronze in 1931. She received a M.A. degree from the University of Buffalo, then studied for a year in Paris and Vienna.

In 1939, she designed and sculpted the Geneva (N.Y.) Veterans Memorial. In 1943, she married John Henrich and moved to California but returned to Buffalo when her husband was killed in World War II the following year.

She served as head of the sculpting department at the Art Institute of Buffalo for 12 years, then worked as an instructor of art and art history at the Buffalo Seminary from 1946 until her retirement in 1979.

Her work was shown in exhibitions throughout the region, including at the Burchfield-Penney Arts Center, the Kenan Center in Lockport and the Members Gallery at Albright-Knox Museum. She was honored with a one-woman show at the Buffalo Seminary in 1997.

Louis J. Sofro ’33 died Monday, April 15, 2002. Born in North Adams, Mass., a son of the late Barney and Fannie (Sulkin) Sofro, he lived in Providence before moving to Florida 30 years ago.

He was the founder and president of Reliance Products Co. of Woonsocket, which he operated for 20 years before selling it to the Gerber Food Co.
A collector of German Expressionist art, he traveled extensively throughout Europe, where he met many of the artists.

Mr. Sofro was a member of Temple Beth-El, in Providence, and a former member of Congregation Ohawe Sholam, in Pawtucket.

Robert Torelle Nagler ’35 died on October 30, 1999, in Prairie du Sac, Wisconsin, where he and his wife had lived for the last 60 years. They had just celebrated 60 years of marriage.

Robert’s daughter, Nancy Nagler, writes: “It’s hard enough for a daughter to talk of her dad, ’cause he can do everything. Well, mine could. (Except, maybe, ride a horse, he left that to me.) As a research scientist, he worked with the early space program and later, recycling and very probably fiber optics. He built our garage, did the repairs around the house, built my brother’s electronic organ from a kit, and also built a 14' runabout from a kit as well. I helped him on most of these. In his later years, he became quite the amateur photographer, returning to his botany roots by taking pictures of “weeds” and exotics. We have a magpie from the US Air Force Academy and a New Mexico horned toad in the mix as well. There are some 5000 slides, all indexed, of course.

My love of learning certainly came from him, as I am most like him and my love of animals and nature too. For all his occasional gruffness, he was a softy at heart.
And if he’s walking with the angels, as one note suggested, it will be with Einstein, Telsa, Edison, and of course, his parents.”

Mary K. Clemens ’36 recently passed away.

Donald Sherwood Bliss ’37 passed away on November 8, 2002. Don was born February 27, 1913 in Buffalo, New York. He was the only child of Sherwood and Clara Bliss.

Don graduated summa cum laude from the University of Rochester in 1936 with a degree in mechanical engineering. Upon graduation, he was employed by DuPont, later Taylor Instrument Co., and had worked on input for the Manhattan Project. He was recruited by Western Electric, Sandia when they needed engineers and began employment there in 1948. He retired from Sandia Labs in 1978. Don was a licensed professional engineer in the state of New York. He was a lifetime member of the NRA and LAB (League of American Bicyclists). He was an avid bicyclist and had over 100,000 miles on his bicycle. He had biked over Trial Ridge Pass in Colorado and ridden two heart rides around Denver. He was a member of the original bicycle committee planning bicycle routes for the city. Don had been a volunteer tutor for APS. He was in the Big Brother/Little Brother program for several years and took the boys no one else wanted to help. Don was a volunteer for SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives) for 20 years. Don and Dottie had a travel trailer and had registered 130,000 miles traveling in the 48 continental states. So they have “seen the USA in their Chevrolet.” Dottie has lost her best friend, confidant and soul mate.

Lee Leiserson ’37 died in the company of his children on March 1, 2003, after a courageous battle with cancer.

Dr. Leiserson received a Ph.D. in organic and physical chemistry from the University of North Carolina after graduating from Antioch.

He was a 50-year member of the American Chemical Society and is listed in American Men & Women of Science. During his long and productive career in industry and government service, he authored numerous publications and was awarded four patents.

Dr. Leiserson retired from the Environmental Protection Agency to Hendersonville, North Carolina. He was a bridge player and valued member of the Men’s Club. Always an avid and committed environmentalist, he was a yearly attendee of the Great Decisions eight-week lecture series and leader for discussion sessions on the environment. Lee enjoyed gardening and participating in the Wednesday hikes with the Carolina Mountain Club until March 2002.

As an active member of the Unitarian Church, Dr. Leiserson served as a delegate to the Unitarian Universalist General Assembly. He was a longtime member of the Institute of General Semantics, contributing his thoughts on “Ethics and Science” in the 1988 International Proceedings Conference.

John C. Stratton Jr. (Jack) ’38 died on January 12, 2003 in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. He was 85. Raised in Middletown, Ohio, he attended Antioch from 1934-38 where he married Betty Wood Stratton ’38 in 1938. Following graduation, he worked for a short time at Industrial Supplies Inc. in LaGrange, Georgia before joining Trans World Airlines in 1940. TWA assignments took him to New York City, Kansas City, and Washington D.C. where he helped the airline handle military requirements during World War II and plan for route expansion after the war. From 1952 to 1970, he worked for Lever Brothers in New York City, first as Budget Manager and later on as an internal consultant working on cross-department problems. After retiring from Lever Brothers, he spent six years running a consultancy and assisting a small company in Stamford, Connecticut. For the past twenty-four years, he and Betty lived in rural Chelsea, Vermont until his recent illness.

Rose K. Zimmerman ’38, 85, a professional artist who was also an aide to senators Francis Myers (D-Pa.), Thomas Hennings (D-Mo.) and Paul Sarbanes (D-Md.), died of congestive heart failure on August 24 at her home in Las Vegas. She had moved there from Silver Spring in 1998.

Mrs. Zimmerman’s abstract art was exhibited at the Baltimore Museum of Modern art and the Corcoran Gallery of Art. From the 1940s until the 1980s, she worked on and off as a writer, researcher and community outreach specialist for the senators.
Mrs. Zimmerman was a native of Philadelphia and an honors graduate of Antioch College. She also studied at the Corcoran School and American University.
As a young woman, she worked for the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.
She was a volunteer with Americans for Democratic Action and the Literacy Council of Montgomery County. She was a docent at the National Army Medical Museum. Her interests included gardening and ceramics.

Charles H. Goodridge Jr. ’39 passed away in 2002. Previously of Yarmouth and Portland, Maine, Charlie was born in Boston, Massachusetts to C. Harold and Florence Alberta (Nichols) Goodridge. The summer before last Charlie and Alice May celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. Since they married late, they felt blessed to have had 50 years together. Their first date was on their mutual birthday, May 13th. One hundred days later they were married in Marshall, Illinois. Upon return from their honeymoon, Charlie received orders from the Naval Reserves to ship out to Japan during the Korean Conflict. Lt. Commander Goodridge returned a year later to his wife and first-born son, Jonathan Smith Goodridge.

Charlie had previously served three years in the South West Pacific during WWII. A man who kept his promises, having taken an oath never to reveal what he did during the WWII, he never told anyone including his wife. However, pictures of him sitting next to radio equipment and his love of puzzles were strong clues as to his wartime occupation.

Charlie grew up in Wellesley, MA, and the Goodridge family summered on First Cliff in Situate. Charlie worked for Graybar Electric for 34 years, not including breaks to serve in the navy overseas. He won numerous awards for his salesmanship at Graybar.

Charlie was an avid sailor and photographer. Not surprisingly his best pictures were of sailboats. As a sailor, his eye was always on the weather. No telephone conversation between Goodridges could start without comparing the weather. His favorite saying was, “It’s a good day for a sail.”

Charlie designed his homes in Cumberland and Yarmouth, Maine; Gloucester, VA; and Stratham, NH. He moved his family every 8-10 years and as soon as they moved into one, he would start designing the next. After retirement Charlie helped with Literacy Volunteers. He also volunteered many hours at the local hospitals in Gloucester, VA and Stratham, NH.

Bryant Tuckerman ’39, a long-time resident of Briarcliff Manor, NY, died on Sunday, May 19, 2002 at the age of 86. He was born in Lincoln, Nebraska November 28, 1915, the son of Una Venable and Dr. Louis Bryant Tuckerman II, a noted physicist and materials scientist with the U.S. National Bureau of Standards. He attended Antioch College and then Princeton University, where as a graduate student in mathematics, he contributed to the invention and theory of “flexagons” in collaboration with fellow students Arthur Stone, John Tukey, and Richard P. Feynmann. His graduate studies were interrupted by government service during World War II, wherein he worked for the Office of Scientific Research and Development on navigational devices for tanks. After the war, he completed his Ph.D. at Princeton in topology.

Dr. Tuckerman taught mathematics for several years at Cornell University and Oberlin College. He then worked for five years at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton with John von Neumann on applications of early computers such as the “MANIAC.” He spent the remaining 35 years of his professional career at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in the Mathematics Department, where he received many awards and commendations for his pioneering work on the applications of computers for scientific calculations, number theory, cryptography and data security.

In 1962, he published “Planetary, Lunar, and Solar Positions,” a set of tables covering the years 601 B.C. through A.D. 1649, which is still being used by historians and archaeologists to date ancient documents containing astronomical references. In 1971 he published what was then the highest known prime number, the 24th Mersenne prime 219937-1. During the latter part of his career he worked extensively on cryptography and data security and was a key member of the IBM team that developed the Data Encryption Standard (DES), which was officially adopted by the U.S. Government in 1976. DES became the standard encryption algorithm used by the global banking industry to protect the security of financial transactions, as well as for many other applications requiring secure and private communications.

Betty Weaver Reynolds ’39 passed away in April of 2001.

Kenneth B. White ’39 of Abbott Run Valley Road, a retired and decorated Navy commander, and a real-estate broker, died at Rhode Island Hospital. He was the husband of Auriel (Meister) White. They had been married for 60 years.
A real-estate broker for many years, Mr. White had worked with his father, at White & White in Providence, and later continued as a partner at Large & White, in Cumberland, retiring in 1977. He was a Navy veteran of World War II, serving as a dive-bomber pilot aboard the Hornet in the Pacific, seeing action at the battles of Midway and Santa Cruz, and was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Medal and the Purple Heart.

After the sinking of the Hornet, he trained pilots in carrier landings at the San Diego Naval Air Station, and served as landing signal officer aboard the Kula Gulf. He retired in 1962 as a commander.

He was a past president of the Providence Board of Realtors, and had taught real-estate courses at Johnson & Wales University. He had attended Brown University, and received his bachelor’s degree from Antioch College.

A birthright member of the Religious Society of Friends, he had been a member for many years of the Providence Monthly Meeting of Friends, and was a trustee of the Obadiah Brown Benevolet/Sara Swift Fund, supporting Quaker education. He was a member of the Rotary Club of Pawtucket, serving as its president in 1974, and was a member of the Arnold Mills Community House. Mr. White was a member of the Cumberland Community-ites, and a member of the board of directors of Learning for Life. He was a past member of the board of directors of the Arnold Mills Cemetery Association, and a founding member of the Abbott Run Valley Club. He enjoyed playing the saxophone, and writing plays, poems and comedic monologues that were well known by local residents.

Robert M. Wieman ’43 passed away on December 25, 2002.

G.M. (Cully) Miller II ’43 passed away in August of 2002.

David R. Jones ’43 died August 16, 2002 in Lititz, Pennsylvania at the age of 82. After World War II and several years of teaching, he entered the ministry. While serving in Nicaragua, he began work in Managua in 1957. Later, when the Christian Broadcasting Network opened its present building, he became minister to the guests, leaving in 1985 to retire.

Dorothy (Dot) Johnson ’47 succumbed to a pair of heart attacks the day before her 79th birthday, March 16, 2003. She and her husband Art were living in the Redwoods of Northern California in a house on the property of their daughter Ann.

After Antioch, Dot and Art raised a family. When the children were of age, Dot acquired a M.A. from the University of Chicago and went on to a career in Early Childhood Development with the Head Start program and worked as a consultant. When she retired she said she was going to lie down on the couch and read full time which she indeed did. About once a quarter Dot and her husband would drive down to Santa Rosa to Borders and return with a box of books for the next quarter.
Kinnon Lilligren ’49 passed away on May 11, 2002. His friends, family, and colleagues remembered him at a memorial service in May: “Kinnon penned his biography in 1986: ‘I started life as an Okie and probably still am one. More precisely, it was 16 Jan 1923 in Duncan, Oklahoma. Attended school, K-11, in Enid, spending summers in surrounding fields and Colorado mountains. Graduated from high school in Parkersburg, West Virginia and spent the summer working as a geologist’s helper reporting to my father and traveling in Georgia and Florida while he assessed the prospects of there being oil or gas in the underground formations.

“‘Started Antioch College in the fall of 1941 and continued thru spring of ’43 when I joined the Marines. Shortly after that switched to the Navy and after fighting the battles of many different training programs stateside finished with a tour of Korea, China, Philippines and various islands after VJ day. Re-entered Antioch in the fall of ’46, married Patricia in the spring of ’47, graduated in mid-June ’49, Ingrid was born a few days later and we all arrived in Lake Charles, Louisiana in early July.

“For ten years I worked for the Emerson Engineers, a management consulting company. During that period, I had around 20 different client assignments and moved the family, which had increased to include Jesse, Nora and Ellen - 12 times. Pat made homes for us from coast-to-coast and gulf-to-Canada.

“The novelty of moving having worn off, I took a job with Kaiser Aluminum as Chief Industrial Engineer in one of their Louisiana plants. In 1961 we moved to the Twin Cities where I had taken a job with General Mills as Director of Administration for their R&D operations.

“From ’71 thru ’77 I worked with a firm of Canadian origins with clients in both the US and Canada. I enjoyed the variety of assignments more than the travel involved but by the end of ’77 the outfit went out of business and I decided to strike out on my own.

“Kinnon Lilligren Associates Incorporated was founded early in ’78 and, somehow, continues to this day. My clients have not been numerous as I would like but have provided some peak experiences. Currently, I am intrigued with what can be done with large-group (15 - 60 people) interventions for problem solving and developing strategy to attain broad goals.’

“In addition to striking out on his own, Kinnon began to develop ever increasing and widening areas of interest. They grew to include shamanism, traditional Chinese medicines and healing, animal wellness, massage, herbal medicines, and psychological types to name a few. In the process of learning and practicing he collected: people, information and ideas - the more the merrier.

After his diagnosis in the late 1980’s of prostate cancer his focus turned more toward healing. He often said his healing work at Pathways facilitated his own healing and growth. Indeed, he became a resource for many of us. Encouragement, support and information he offered willingly and happily - I think he most enjoyed facilitating people connecting and sharing information with each other. Hopefully this was an aid to their own growth and healing. As part of his own growth and curiosity, he went to China to study Qi Gong - clearly a highlight for him. He returned with more to share.

“We miss him in so many aspects of our lives, but we can still enjoy what he gave us and taught us - both as a person struggling with his own issues and as a resource of knowledge, support and caring. Alex Haley remarked ‘When an older person dies it’s like losing a library.’ Perhaps we still have it.”

Stuart Sherman ’50 of Manhattan, an innovative performance artist and playwright who also worked creatively in film, video, sculpture and other visual arts, died on September 21, 2002. Mr. Sherman was born in Woonsocket, and leaves family in Rhode Island.

Idiosyncratic and unclassifiable, Mr. Sherman was an avatar of the avant-garde. As a theatrical miniaturist, he created landscapes in cameo, manipulating objects that could fit in a suitcase. He was concerned with the transformation of ordinary objects (boxes and blocks, toys and neckties), with stop-action kineticism and visual puns.

In some of his pieces, he was like a sidewalk pitchman, setting up a table and delivering postcard lectures. Eventually, he took his art on world tour, literally as well as textually, offering snapshots or “living paintings” of Paris, Cairo, Tokyo, St. Petersburg and other cities.

He performed in major museums (throughout the United States and Europe) as well as in small experimental theaters. But even as he won awards
(a Prix de Rome, a Guggenheim Fellowship and an Obie, among others), he remained relatively unknown to the public and was never financially secure. Early in his career, he wrote stories and poems and worked as an actor in New York with companies run by Charles Ludlam and Richard Foreman. Propelled by a need for self-invention, he began manipulating, or, in his word, recontexting objects in 1975. His first performances were in his living room. Soon he moved into theaters and also streets and parks.

Later he branched out to film and videos and offered his response to classical texts. He recreated Hamlet and Oedipus and presented a five-minute Faust. In contrast to many other experimental artists, his work was quick-paced. Blink, and the “play” had ended.

Leo E. Hennessy ’51 of Crossville, Tennessee, died Tuesday, November 26, 2002. He was 78 years of age. Born December 8, 1923, in Buffalo, New York, he was the son of William and Charlotte Haag Hennessy. He retired from the Goshen Rubber Company, of Goshen, Indiana, where he served as Technical Director. He and his wife, Juliet Liddle Hennessy were long-time members of the Yellow Springs community.

Mr. Hennessy completed the co-op program at Antioch while performing research for Charles F. Kettering in Dayton, and then in Yellow Springs at Kettering Laboratories and Vernay Laboratories for a number of years. Thereafter, he entered a career in research and technical directing in industrial rubber chemistry. He served as a member of the United States Navy in World War II on several Destroyer Escorts, and was awarded the Victory Medal, American Theatre Medal, Philippine Liberation Ribbon, and Asiatic Pacific Medal.

He is survived by his wife, Juliet Liddle Hennessy (daughter of Albert W. Liddle, who was professor of Literature at Antioch from 1927 to 1961) and Ruth Liddle, long-time residents of Yellow Springs.

Sally Sprague Kittross ’52 died at Massachusetts General Hospital on December 22, 2002.

Her husband Michael Kittross ’51 writes: “In addition to being a wife and mother, Sally was an artist and traveler. She was born in New York City, the daughter of Irvin A. and Maude F. Sprague, of Riverside, Connecticut, both of whom predeceased her.

“She also was an Antiochian, deciding to go to Yellow Springs rather than to Smith after hearing about it from a fellow camp counselor, and I was lucky enough to meet her when she volunteered for the dirty jobs at the Opera House (‘who is that gorgeous person in the yellow dress?’) and fall in love.

“She was one of the ‘Bingle Belles’ who entered in 1947, and was active in that enduring group (they still get together every few years). In fact, Sally’s memorial service was graced by the presence of two other members (Marcia Iliff Paschkis ’52 and Carolyn Shatz Rabson ’53), the quilt that each of the ‘belles’ helped design (and which, eerily, received a ray of reflected sunlight through Sally’s square during the reception), and the ‘Bingle Farewell’ poem written for such occasions by Ann Pratt Reilly ’52 and read by Shatzie (Carolyn Rabson ’53). Other Antiochians who attended the memorial in addition to Marcia, Carolyn, and me (and Sally’s spirit) were Al Paschkis ’51, Gus Rabson (former faculty), our daughter Julia ’79 and her husband Stuart Schnell ’78.

“After her graduation, we lived for two years in Fayetteville, NC, four in Urbana, IL, nine in Long Beach, CA and seventeen in Huntingdon Valley, PA before moving to Acton, MA in 1985. We have traveled widely, criss-crossing the United States several times, and visiting extensively in the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Italy, Canada and Mexico. In March, 2002, we took the trip she had wanted to take for a half-century to Egypt and Petra (Jordan). She loved antiquity, music, nature, and the American southwest.

“Sally was a watercolor (and pastels and colored pencil) artist, exhibited in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. She also was an active member of First Parish (Unitarian) in Concord, the League of Women Voters, and several art centers, as well as numerous environmental and health-related organizations, particularly the OCD Foundation and the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America.

“Although Sally had been aware for thirty years that there was a possibility of a cerebral hemorrhage, and had had other serious medical conditions, they did not slow her down, and few knew of her medical status. In her mid-60s, she took up cross-country skiing.

“Sally spent lavishly of her limited supply of time and energy in helping others, both friends and family, and in supporting worthwhile antiwar and environmental causes.”
Darby Macaulay, III ’53 died on April 3, 2002, at home after an 11-year battle with cancer. He was 71. His wife Fran Macaulay ’52 writes: “A valiant fight with cancer had many highs and lows. During the highs we traveled to many gorgeous spots in the Bahamas and the Caribbean. The more remote, the better. I miss him deeply.”
Born in Plainfield, New York, he was a son of Alice and Albert Darby Macaulay Jr.
Mr. Macaulay lived in Holland Township for more than 45 years. He was a salesman for American Aluminum Castings in Irvington until retiring in 1997. Before that, he was a tugboat captain, working along the Eastern seaboard and based in Staten Island, New York for more than 20 years. He was also a dairy farmer.
Mr. Macaulay was a Marine Corps veteran, serving during the Korean War.
He was a scuba diver who pursued the sport all over New Jersey, the Caribbean, and the Bahamas. He was a member of the Garden State Underwater Recovery Unit in Milford. He was also a member of the American Rabbit Breeders Association and the Netherlands Dwarf Rabbit Breeders Association, and the Phillipsburg Pistol Club.

Carrie Baldwin ’57, wife of Robert Baldwin ’57, died Saturday, June 1, 2002, in Community Hospital’s James Cancer Unit in Springfield, Ohio. She was 67 years of age.

She first came to Yellow Springs as an Antioch College student in 1953. A resident of Yellow Springs for more than 25 years, she touched countless lives. She loved gardening, martinis, Dixieland music, her cottage on Pelee Island in Canada and most of all, her family.

Though she is no longer with us in body she is in spirit.

Donald J. Logan ’58 died January 8, 2003 in Jacksonville, Florida. Born in Engelwood, NJ, Don spent four years in the US Navy, as a submariner, before coming to Antioch in 1954. During his fourth year, Don was a member of Administrative Council. He was active in College theatre productions, and worked as a bartender throughout his years on campus at Ye Olde Trail Tavern. He also co-managed the Antioch Bookstore as his final co-op.

Don earned an M.B.A. from the University of Denver. He worked in various management roles for Sperry Gyroscope, Sperry Vickers and Black and Decker, retiring from TRW as Vice President of Information Technology in 1995.
Clare S. Conrad ’64 recently passed away in Xenia, Ohio.

Eric Raimy ’65, son of Ruth Raimy ’33 and the late Victor Raimy ’35, died unexpectedly on June 29, 2002 of lung cancer. Eric never smoked and often rode his mountain bike. He was a freelance writer and lived in Oakland California. Ruth Raimy is 92 and has lived in Honolulu, Hawaii for 25 years.

Ivan Lee Fillmore, D.V.M., ’68 died Jan. 10, 2002. Born April 16, 1945 in Cleveland, Ohio, he was the son of the late Lloyd A.and Alice VonAlt Fillmore. He is survived by his wife of more than 30 years, Catherine “Kay” Myers Fillmore.

Dr. Fillmore had served as a veterinarian in the York, Adams County area since 1973. He was currently the owner of the Animal Hospital of West York on W. Market St., a practice he began in 1987. Prior to that he owned Clearview Animal Hospital in Hanover.

He attended the Religious Society of Friends and had been a former choir director for West York Church of the Brethren. He was a past president of the York-Adams Veterinary Medical Association. He was a member of the Pennsylvania Veterinary Medical Assoc.; Ohio State University Veterinary Alumni Assoc.; Association of Reptilian Amphibian Veterinarians; and the Mid- Atlantic State Avian Veterinarians.
He was also a member of the York Area Chamber of Commerce and a former member of the Hanover Rotary Club. He graduated from Antioch College with a bachelor of science degree in biology and a doctorate of veterinary medicine from The Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine.

Candace Louise Leyton ’70, a mathe- matics teacher who taught 31 years in the Fairfax County public school system, died of breast cancer on February 16 in her home in Vienna, Virginia.

Mrs. Leyton retired on disability in 2002 from Cooper Middle School, where she had been a math resource teacher and chair of the math department.
She began her teaching career in Fairfax County in 1971 at Wolftrap Elementary School in Vienna, where for 23 years she taught in the fourth, fifth and sixth grades. She was elected to the advisory board of the Virginia Council of Teachers of Mathematics and in the early 1990s was a frequent presenter at math conferences and workshops.

In 1989 and 1990, Mrs. Leyton participated in the first national teachers group trained by New York’s Metropolitan Opera to develop children’s opera.

She was born in Sheridan, Wyoming, and graduated from Antioch. In 1977, she received a master’s degree in learning disabilities from George Mason University.
She was a member of Emmanuel Lutheran Church and its sanctuary choir in Vienna and the PEO sisterhood.

Dennis Coates ’71 died of a heart attack after hiking to the summit of Mount Ellinor in Mason County.

Dennis had a great love of books and worked as a librarian. He was also self-employed as a fruit orchard farmer. Dennis dedicated the last years of his life to caring for his mother, who was injured in a serious accident.

David Truely ’73 was born August 7, 1948 in Chicago, Illinois. He departed this life on Monday, December 9, 2002 at approximately 11:00 a.m. at North Memorial Hospital near Minneapolis, Minnesota. While in High School, he was unofficially and lovingly adopted into the Duncan family.

David studied Television and Film at Antioch. He also pursued advance studies at Columbia University, NYC.

David’s good nature and beautiful spirit will be sorely missed by all who came to know and love him. David loved people and chose the communications and multi-media fields to express his many talents. He was a member of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians.

David was unique in his many, many contributions and his outstanding credits with numerous television stations, including the “big three,” namely ABC-TV - Good Morning America, World News Tonite, and Niteline; CBS-TV - Morning News, Evening News, 48 Hours, Sunday Morning, and NFL Football; NBC-TV - Sunrise, Today Show, Nightly News, NFL Football, The Cosby Show, and David Letterman; and, WNET - Dance in America, McNeil/Lehrer Newshour, Live from Lincoln Center, etc.

David recently returned to Chicago, Illinois prior to his death. After completing college he primarily lived, worked and raised his family on the east coast between New York and Washington, D.C. David loved to travel and recently visited St. Louis, Missouri; Phoenix, Arizona; Los Angeles, California; Seattle, Washington; Detroit, Michigan; and Minneapolis, Minnesota.


Gerda Oldham, beloved former employee at Antioch, passed away on Friday morning, December 13, 2002 at the age of 90, in Yellow Springs. Gerda served as administrative assistant to several Antioch college administrators, including J.D. Dawson, Morris Keeton, and Jim Dixon. Later, although officially retired, she continued to work at The Antioch Review, proofreading and writing book reviews. A favorite activity was to read aloud to Nolan Miller, emeritus faculty member and Editor Emeritus of The Antioch Review. Until her death she continued to read and play the piano; her special pleasure was playing two-piano duets with Helen Dunham.

Born in Germany, Gerda moved with her parents to the United States when she was 15 years old. While living in Chicago, she met Jim Oldham and they were married in 1936. In 1957 Gerda, Jim and their family moved to Yellow Springs.

The Antioch Community sends its heartfelt condolences to the Oldham family.

Edmund W. Samuel passed away on August 29, 2002 of a complication from cancer. Edmund taught in the Biology Department at Antioch from 1960-1980. At age 77, he was a full-time Professor of Biology at Southern Connecticut State University.

His wife, Yoshiko Samuel, writes: “Antioch held a very special spot in his heart throughout his career. He cherished fond memories of students, colleagues, and friends here, always. I thank you for all that.”

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