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OBITUARIES
Joseph Joffe, retired professor, Maplewood, N.J., on August 7, 2000. Born in Russia in 1909, Joffe immigrated with his family to the United States after the Russian Revolution, attended high school in the Bronx and won a Pulitzer scholarship to the College. He earned a B.S. from the Engineering School (1930) and an M.S. in physics (1931) and a Ph.D. in chemistry (1933) from GSAS. His thesis advisor was Dr. Harold Urey, and as a University Fellow in Chemistry, Joffe assisted Urey in his Columbia laboratory in the discovery of heavy hydrogen that eventually earned Urey the Nobel Prize. During World War II, Joffe was part of the Manhattan Project, working on the separation of fissionable U235 from the inert U238. Joffe taught chemical engineering at the New Jersey Institute of Technology (formerly the Newark College of Engineering) for 43 years, serving as chairman of the departments of chemical engineering and chemistry. Although he taught almost every course in chemical engineering and many chemistry courses, his primary area of expertise was thermodynamics. Widely recognized as one of America's leading thermodynamicists, he advised numerous master's and doctoral students in the area, and in the 1960s he developed the Joffe Equation of State. He also served as a consultant to many corporations, including 29 consecutive summers at Exxon Research and Engineering in New Jersey. Joffe, who retired from teaching in 1975, was a fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers and a member of numerous professional societies. Survivors include a son, Richard Joffe '72.
Charles E. Schmonsees, retired educator, Clearwater, Fla., on May 12, 2000. Schmonsees had been a teacher for many years at the Franklin School in Summit, N.J.
Alois Niles Schoening, retired production manager, Louisville, Ky., on May 8, 2000. A native of the Bronx, Schoening was a star on the College's track team and won the Metropolitan 60-yard sprint title his sophomore year. Except for service in the U.S. Army during World War II, Schoening worked for Colgate-Palmolive for his entire professional career, retiring as production manager for the company's plant in Clarksville, Ind. He retired to Louisville, where he was an active member of the Christ Church (United Methodist) and the local YMCA.
Fon Wyman Boardman, Jr., author and publisher, New York, on August 3, 2000. A member of Phi Beta Kappa, Boardman worked at Columbia University Press from his graduation until 1951, when he moved to Oxford University Press. He also served as a lecturer in English at the School of General Studies in the early 1950s. Although Boardman worked in the publicity departments at both presses, he found time to write on a wide variety of topics. Among his many titles were Castles (1957), Roads (1958), Canals (1959), History and Historians (1965), Economics: Ideas and Men (1966), America and the Gilded Age, 1876-1900 (1972), America and the Virginia Dynasty, 1800-1825 (1974), Around the World in 1776 (1975), and America and The Jacksonian Era, 1825-1850 (1975). Even after his "official" retirement, Boardman was a contributing editor to The Encyclopedia of American Facts and Dates (1987). Boardman also put his literary skills to the service of his alma mater. During World War II, he penned Columbia: An American University in Peace and War (1944), a short history of the University written for naval personnel who were training on campus, and he edited Columbia University in Pictures (1954) for the University bicentennial. (Columbia University Press published both volumes.) The Class of 1934 had no more loyal alumnus than Boardman, who always proudly identified himself as a member of "the Rose Bowl Class of 1934." Until slowed down by illness, he was a fixture at campus events, alumni gatherings and Columbia Club events. He served on the King's Crown Advisory committee, the Columbia University Forum advisory board and the board of governors of the Columbia University Club. In May 1989, the Columbia College Alumni Association presented Boardman with the President's Cup for "outstanding service to the College and to his Class." He is also fondly remembered for his service as class correspondent for Columbia College Today in the early 1980s and again in the late 1990s.
Louis Allocca, retired lawyer, Vero Beach, Fla., on April 3, 2000. Allocca, who took courses at the Law School, received an LL.B. from NYU in 1940. He worked as a tax attorney, senior tax and financial analyst, and consultant for Union Carbide in New York beginning in 1952. He had been a director of the Windsor Life Insurance Co. in New York and a director of the YMCA in Ridgewood, N.J. His service to his alma mater included a long tenure as vice president of the Columbia Alumni Club of Bergen County, N.J. Allocca retired to Florida in the 1980s.
Alexander W. Magocsi, physician, York, Maine, on March 8, 2000. A family physician for more than 50 years, Magocsi became a pillar of the community in his adopted home of York, Maine. He was born in New York and attended P.S. 122 and Bryant High School before entering the College. He earned his medical degree from the Long Island College of Medicine and served his medical residency at the Long Island College Hospital where he became a fellow in anesthesiology. During World War II, Magocsi served in the U.S. Army's 63rd Tank Destroyer Battalion and the Second Ranger Battalion. After the war, he settled in York, where he was for a time one of only two local physicians. He was instrumental in the development of the local hospital, with which he was closely identified. A member of the York County Medical Society, he served for a time as medical examiner for the State of Maine. He was a founder and board member of the York Volunteer Ambulance Association, a member of the York School Board, and served as school physician. Other community service included participation in Rotary International, the York Club, the Save Our Children Foundation and Habitat for Humanity, and a charter membership in the American Museum for Indians. Magocsi even contributed a regular column, "A Biased View," to the York Weekly, the local newspaper.
James Ivers, Jr., retired engineer, Park City, Utah, on May 14, 2000. Ivers, who also had a degree from the Engineering School, worked for many years as a consulting engineer in the Salt Lake City area.
Robert Lax, poet, Olean, N.Y., on September 26, 2000. Lax, who was the subject of a feature story by James Uebbing '82 in Columbia College Today (Fall 1999), was born to a prominent Jewish family which had helped build a synagogue in Olean. He grew up in Olean and on Long Island, and studied literature at the College, where he edited Jester and became a close friend of some of Columbia's most important literary figures, especially his teacher, Mark Van Doren, and his classmate, Thomas Merton '38. One of his early poems, "The Last Days of a City," won Lax the Boar's Head Prize from the College and the Van Rensselaer Prize from the University for the "best example of English lyric verse." In his celebrated autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain (1948), Merton described Lax as "a kind of combination of Hamlet and Elias." He was, Merton continued, "a potential prophet, but without rage," possessing a "mind full of tremendous and subtle intuitions." In 1943, Lax converted to Roman Catholicism, as his friend Merton had two years earlier. Lax held various positions with a series of New York magazines - editor at The New Yorker, film critic for Time and publisher and editor of Pax - in the years following graduation. He also spent long periods abroad, mainly in Paris (where he worked at NewStory magazine), Marseille, and Canada, where Lax (a juggler) toured with the Christiani Family Circus. In the late 1950s, he became a "roving editor" for the Catholic magazine Jubilee, which had been founded by Edward Rice '40. In 1964, Lax abandoned magazine work altogether and moved to the Greek island of Kalymnos (off the Turkish coast), eventually settling on the Aegean island of Patmos. Although he never embraced a religious vocation like his friend Merton, Lax's poetry often had a subtle spiritual dimension, as in a highly praised early volume of poems, The Circus of the Sun (1959), which he began with a play on the opening verses of John's Gospel. His poetry never became widely known in America, but it did win a small, devoted following. Jack Kerouac '44 described Lax as "a Pilgrim in search of beautiful Innocence, writing lovingly, finding it, simply, in his own way." Lax received a National Council of the Arts Award in 1969. In a 1978 New York Times Book Review, Richard Kostelanetz praised Lax as "among America's greatest experimental poets, a true minimalist who can weave awesome poems from remarkably few words." Lax continued to perfect the spare style that became his trademark, occasionally generating poems consisting of single words running down a page. Among Lax's recent books were Love Had A Compass (1996), a collection of journal entries and poetry, and A Thing That Is (1997). A final collection of poems, Circus Days and Nights, was published in July 2000. Lax, who had moved back to Olean from Patmos in August because of failing health, was buried in the Franciscan cemetery at St. Bonaventure University. The university houses the Lax archives. A memorial service for Lax was held at Corpus Christi Church on West 121st Street in Manhattan on November 18. William Jeremiah Sheehan, retired naval officer, Williamsburg, Va., on January 19, 2000. A native of Catskill, N.Y., Bill Sheehan took courses at the Graduate School of Business and eventually earned an M.B.A. from Stanford. (He also earned a diploma from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces in 1964.) After a brief stint at Sinclair Refining in New York, Sheehan joined the U.S. Navy in 1942. Commissioned as an ensign, he served in the Navy Supply Corps for 32 years, advancing through grades to captain. In the mid-1960s, he worked in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. Sheehan moved to Williamsburg after his retirement in 1975. He had been a member of the U.S. Naval Institute and Alpha Sigma Phi. An avid birder and amateur ornithologist from his youth, Sheehan was a charter member of the Williamsburg Bird Club, as well as the club's first secretary and editor of the club's annual annotated list of local birds.
Abraham Seldner, retired chemist, Princeton, N.J., on April 19, 2000. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the College, Seldner spent his entire professional life as a research chemist. After graduation, he worked for F. Ritter & Co. in Los Angeles before returning to the New York area to work for International Flavors and Fragrances, Inc. and Rhodia Corp. Selder later worked for Dow Chemical, and became manager of personal products for Johnson and Johnson, and vice president for technical services for the Amerchol Corp. A member of the American Chemical Society and the Cosmetic Chemists Association, Seldner worked for a time after his retirement in 1982 as a volunteer consultant to Universe Beauty Company of Bangkok and Azbane, a Casablanca-based cosmetics firm. Seldner, who was a native of Union City, N.J., had lived in Princeton for the last 37 years. Survivors include his son, Joseph Seldner '73.
John David Rainer, psychiatrist, Eastchester, N.Y., on March 12, 2000. Born in Brooklyn, Rainer was a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the College in philosophy and mathematics, earning a master's from Teachers College in 1944 and his medical degree from P&S in 1951. He was an internationally known researcher and educator in the field of psychogenetics and the theory and practice of psychiatry for the mentally ill deaf. A pioneer in the research of genetic factors in schizophrenia and manic-depression, for over 45 years he was a central figure at the New York State Psychiatric Institute, where he held the positions of chief of psychiatric research, director of the department of medical genetics and co-director of the department's institutional review board. He is credited with helping enhance the Institute's reputation as one of the preeminent psychiatric research organizations in the U.S. Rainer was a professor of clinical psychiatry at P&S, as well as a training and supervising psychoanalyst at the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Research and Training. The author or co-author of more than 150 scholarly articles, reviews and books, he was a life fellow of both the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychoanalytic Association, and a former president of the Westchester Psychoanalytic Society. Among his many honors, Rainer could count the Pioneering Award from Gallaudet University, which cited his "groundbreaking work in the advancement of mental health practice in the deaf community, which has paved the way for all who came after." A memorial ceremony for Rainer was held at the Hudson River Museum on April 16, 2000. Survivors include a son, Jeffrey Rainer '69.
Lawrence S. Bangser, attorney, New York, on May 20, 2000. The son of Adolph Bangser (Class of 1907), Larry Bangser served in the Marine Corps during World War II and earned his law degree at Columbia in 1937. He first practiced law in New York at Kupfer, Silbereld, Nathan & Danzinger, but later became a senior partner at the Manhattan firm of Bangser, Klein, Rocca and Blum. A supporter of many charitable causes, Bangser was a longtime coach for the Special Olympics. His many services to his alma mater included membership in the John Jay Associates program. Memorial contributions may be sent to the Manhattan Special Olympics, c/o Jean Pine, 7410 35th Street, Jackson Heights, N.Y. 11372.
Clark Danielson, retired, Santa Barbara, Calif., on August 19, 1999.
Leo P. Mabel, retired publishing executive, Seattle, on July 3, 2000. At the College, Mabel was a starting tennis player and editor of Spectator. A long-time publishing executive, Mabel's career including stints as vice president of Henry M. Snyder, Macmillan and Crowell Collier Macmillan in New York, as well as president of Collier Macmillan International. He is credited with publishing English translations of The Diary of Anne Frank and The Great Soviet Encyclopedia as well as the English as a second language series, ESL 900, and English This Way. A world traveler known for his love of progressive politics, folk music and tennis, Mabel had lived in New York City, Freeport, N.Y., London and Seattle, where he was a board member of the Forty Fifth Street Community Clinic. Memorial donations may be made to the Forty Fifth Street Community Clinic, 1629 45th Street, Seattle, Wash. 98103.
Eugene H. Courtiss, surgeon and professor, Brookline, Mass., on July 11, 2000. A native of Boston, Courtiss received his medical degree from Boston University in 1955. He completed his residency at the University of Minnesota and the former Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Massachusetts, and served as a captain in the Army Medical Corps. From 1969-83, Courtiss was chief of the division of plastic surgery at Newton-Wellesley Hospital. From 1987 until his death, he was a consultant in surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital. A visiting professor at 30 universities who taught 79 courses in plastic surgery, he became an associate clinical professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School in 1990. Courtiss, who served as associate editor and book review editor of the journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, was the editor of five books on plastic surgery. He had been a director, examiner, senior examiner and chairman of the American Board of Plastic Surgery, as well as president of the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, the Northeastern Society of Plastic Surgeons, the New England Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons, and the Massachusetts Society of Plastic Surgeons. Courtiss received the Ivy Award for Best Paper from the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons (1976), the Best Paper Award (1982) and Distinguished Service Award (1989) from the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, and the Distinguished Service Award from the Plastic Surgery Educational Foundation. Lawrence E. Phillips, securities analyst, Ridgewood, N.J., on August 31, 2000. Phillips, who also earned a bachelor's degree from the Engineering School and an MBA from Harvard, served in the U.S. Navy in the Pacific Theater during World War II. He became a highly respected electronics industry securities analyst, working at Lehman Management Co., Kuhn Loeb, Kidder Peabody and other firms. Memorial contributions may be sent to the American Diabetes Association, 200 White Plains Road, Tarrytown, N.Y. 10591.
Joshua Darsa, television executive, Rockville, Md., on July 14, 2000. A native New Yorker, Darsa took graduate courses in European diplomatic history at Columbia and served in the U.S. Army, for which he wrote a history of the atomic age. During the 1950s, he worked as a radio reporter and television news anchorman in California and as an editor for Reuters in London. From 1960-70 he worked for CBS News, filing reports from Los Angeles, Chicago, New York and London. He joined National Public Radio in 1971 as a reporter, later becoming a senior producer and writer of documentaries, executive producer of live events, and director of news and information development, including coverage of the 1972 and 1976 presidential primaries and party conventions. In 1984, he joined the Washington, D.C.-based Corporation for Public Broadcasting as a senior program officer. In this capacity, he helped develop The McNeil-Lehrer News Hour, the documentary series Frontline, and Eyes on the Prize, an award-winning, 13-part documentary on the civil rights movement. Darsa won a number of Ohio State Awards for coverage of the Watergate hearings and the Olympics as well as a 1978 Peabody Award for a documentary, Dialogues on a Tightrope: An Italian Mosaic. Darsa had retired in September 1999.
Henry Littlefield, educator, Pacific Grove, Calif., on March 31, 2000. A native New Yorker, Littlefield served as an officer in the Marine Corps from 1954 to 1958, stationed in Japan, where he earned a black belt in judo and played on the 3rd Marines' championship football team. He returned to Columbia, where he earned a master's and later a doctorate in history. He began his teaching career at Mt. Vernon High School in New York, where he taught history and coached football and wrestling. Littlefield, who won club, Metropolitan, Eastern and National titles as a wrestler for the New York Athletic Club, led his Mt. Vernon wrestling team to the state championship in 1967. Littlefield became dean of students and coach of football and wrestling at Amherst College in 1968, leaving that position in 1976 to become headmaster of the York School in Monterey, Calif. He served as headmaster at York for 14 years, also teaching American history. He also taught at Golden Gate University and the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey; for the past six years, he was a teacher at Robert Louis Stevenson School in Pebble Beach, Calif. Littlefield published articles on a variety of topics, notably American history and culture, and was a well-known speaker on the Monterey Peninsula. His best-known lecture, "The Wizard of Oz: A Parable on Populism," was reprinted in several anthologies. At the College, Littlefield was a member of the Columbia College Masquers and played the lead in the 1954 bicentennial Varsity Show. He later attended the American Theater Wing in New York. On the Monterey Peninsula, he became well known as a local actor, playing the lead in Macbeth, Eddie Carbone in Arthur Miller's View from the Bridge and Daddy Warbucks in Annie, among many other roles. A past president of the Monterey Peninsula Rotary Club and the Monterey Peninsula Chamber of Commerce, Littlefield served on the boards of All Saints Episcopal School, the Monterey Peninsula YMCA, the Monterey County Library and the California Association of Independent Schools. He was a member of the Old Capital Club in Monterey, All Saints Episcopal Church in Carmel and Church in the Forest in Pebble Beach, where he also taught a Bible class. John Marshall Rubien, New York, on July 18, 2000.
Enrique R. Larde, Santurce, Puerto Rico, on June 3, 1999.
Louis Barry Russell, attorney, South Dartmouth, Mass., on November 10, 1999. A native of New Bedford, Mass., Russell returned to his hometown after earning his law degree from NYU. He became a founding partner (with his father, Abram Rusitzky) and principal of the law firm of Rusitzky & Russell in New Bedford, where he practiced for more than 40 years. A member of the bar associations of Massachusetts, Bristol County, Boston and New Bedford, he was also an incorporator for Compass Bank. Russell was a highly respected figure in the civic affairs of southeastern Massachusetts. He was a founding member of the Greater New Bedford Big Brother-Big Sister Program and Greater New Bedford Legal Aid Services, and a past president and member of the Greater New Bedford Jewish Federation and the New Bedford Jewish Convalescent Home. Russell was both a member and director of the Wamsutta Club in New Bedford and a former member of the New Bedford Exchange Club. An avid photographer, his work had been shown at the Wamsutta Club and Bierstadt Gallery. Russell, who often split his time between Massachusetts and Sarasota, Fla., had been a member of Congregation Tifereth Israel and Ahavath Achim Synagogue in Massachusetts and Temple Sinai in Florida.
David H. Fishman, chemical industry consultant, Berkeley Heights, N.J., on April 23, 2000. Fishman, who earned a Ph.D. in chemistry from Penn State University (1964) and an MBA from Farleigh Dickinson University (1985), was president of Fishman Inc., a consulting firm to the chemical industry. He was an executive board member and past president of the New York Printing Inks and Pigments Club, a member of the Society of Plastic Engineers, the National Society of Printing Ink Manufacturers and the Gravure Association of America, and a technical adviser to American Ink Maker, a trade journal. He was also a board member and president of the Berkeley Heights Board of Health.
Rebecca Gershenson, graduate student, New York, on June 30, 2000. A graduate of South High School in Minneapolis, Gershenson was a history major at the College. She was working on a Ph.D. in French history at Rutgers University at the time of her death. Memorial contributions should be sent to the Cure for Lymphoma Foundation, 215 Lexington Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10016.
Erik S. Nelson, attorney, Minneapolis, on August 12, 2000. A history major at the College, Nelson was awarded the Ganguine Scholarship for Academic Achievement, studied history at Cambridge University's Clare College during his junior year and graduated cum laude. He worked as an analyst at Wertheim Schroders in New York and Schroders in London before entering the University of Minnesota Law School, where he served as managing editor of the Law Review. Nelson was an associate at the firm of Ballantine LLP in New York at the time of his death. Memorial contributions may be made to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society of America (800-955-4572).
Per Christian Malloch, student, New York, on November 1, 2000. Malloch, a native of Venice, Calif., was a visual arts major who was a member of the Philolexian Society, hosted a program on WBAR-FM and contributed a regular column to Spectator. Malloch wrote and produced a play, The Chicken Musical, which he also released as a CD, and had been selected as the incoming editor of the Columbia East Asian Review. He had returned to the College in September 2000 after living for the last year in Seattle, where he had written a book on playing Japanese video games.
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