Necrology 2004-2005

Submitted by Ward W. Briggs, CAMWS Historian

When the office of historian of CAMWS descended to me, it was felt that the membership past and present might be better served if I could enlarge slightly our recognition of members who had died during the year, beyond the mere reading of the names as had been the previous practice. So on an experimental basis, I shall begin this year to offer a small summary of the career of those who have passed since our last meeting as my brief time permits.

As usual the list contains the names of those who left us before we hardly got to know them, and those who paid us the finest compliment by staying with us so very long.

In the tragic first category is Shilpa Raval, born in India, raised in New Jersey, and an honors graduate of Drew University in 1991. In the process of acquiring her Ph.D. at Brown she fashioned a superb dissertation on gender, language, and sexuality in Ovid's Metamorphoses, which promised a brilliant future and original contributions to the field of gender studies. She was two years at the University of Missouri, 1998-2000 before moving on to Yale, where she was an energetic teacher, and publisher on many aspects of the portrayal of women from Andromache to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Her colleagues in Columbia and New Haven remember an irreplaceable teacher and scholar, her students recall a generous friend with a million watt smile that dimmed only after an heroic bout with cancer ended her life at 34 in May of 2004.

Paul Rehak was a son of Ann Arbor who graduated from the University of Michigan in 1976 and went on to receive a masters in 1980 and a Ph.D. in 1985 from Bryn Mawr. A White Fellow at the American School in 1981, he followed a one-year stint at the University of Kansas with appointments at the College of Wooster, the American University in Paris, and six years at Loyola University of Chicago. He taught archaeology at Duke from 1995 to 2000, then returned to the University of Kansas in 2001. Throughout his too brief career he gave selflessly of himself to numerous committees, as book review editor for the American Journal of Archaeology, and as secretary of the alumni association of the American School, and to his beautiful pack of retrievers and shelties whose photos still appear on his website.  He died in June 2004 of a heart attack.

Robert Edgeworth was a Chicago native, who received his undergraduate education at Loyola University in that city and went on to receive degrees from the University of Michigan, writing his dissertation under Shackleton Bailey on colors in ancient authors. His numerous articles and presentations covered a wide range of Greek and Roman authors, reflecting the breadth and value of his teaching first at the Australian National University, then at San Diego State, then at Louisiana State University. HE was well-known on campus not only for his popular lectures but for his propensity to become a contestant on television game shows like Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, and Who Wants to be a Millionaire.  A man who put his beliefs into action, he was chairman of the Latin Liturgy Committee and was twice a Louisiana delegate to the Republican National Convention. His death in October followed a heroic bout against cancer.

Michael Brown of the University of Illinois died in August of 2004. He was a precise and prolific scholar from his earliest days as an undergraduate and graduate student at the University of Michigan. He taught at Harvard and was a fellow at the Hellenic Center before coming to the Urbana in 1974.  With the publication of 240 articles and 23 monographs he established himself as the world authority on Old Nubian, the earliest ebonics, publishing a dictionary and a grammar of that language.

Yet a third product of the University of Michigan was Jack Martin Balcer who died last July. He taught at Denison and Indiana Universities and came to Ohio State in 1971. A renowned teacher, he was a student favorite whose own photographs of sites, coins and people helped make his courses treasured memories for generations of Ohio State students. His work on numismatics and the relations of Greeks and non-Greeks in Asia Minor won him numerous prestigious grants, but his first love remained the University and the students he taught for over thirty years.

Just this March Dr. Henry A. Strater, longtime teacher of Greek and Latin as well as being the Speech and Debate coach at Shaker Heights High School and at University School.

Finally, we note the passing of him who was with us longest. Stanley Vandersall was the former chairman of the classics department at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln. He began Latin at Roxbury Latin School in his native Massachusetts. His undergraduate degree was from the College of Wooster and his graduate work at Ohio State was cut short by the demands of World War II. He learned sufficient Japanese to interpret intelligence documents in Hawaii and Japan. After the war, he took his position at Nebraska and for 37 years taught virtually every class in the department. Students often referred to him as Commander Vandersall, though in his passion to cover all aspects of the day's topic, he would the classes long; no one left. His other passions were his pipe and the railroads of North America. He retired in 1985 but maintained his presence in the classroom, teaching a course known popularly as “Latin for Retirees.�? He was married for 63 years and died last November at the age of 87.  His generosity is evident in his bequests to a number of classical organizations.

To this list let me add Samuel Dewey Buckley of Bellhaven College, Michael Jameson of Stanford, and Edward Kadletz of Ball State University.  If there are others, please let me or Anne Groton know.