(Written by Donald Lateiner, acknowledging gratefully the help, research, and energy of the following people in compiling this SCS memorial: Natalie Wirshbo, Greg Bucher, Brad Cook, Kerri Hame, Nick Genovese, Robert Eisner, Page duBois, and June Allison. Rosaria Munson and Joe Patwell also offered observations. E. Marianne Gabel captured the photograph below on the left at Le Trou Normand during the 2016 SCS meetings in San Francisco. Natalie Wirshbo provided the photograph on the right)
ELIOT WIRSHBO. 24 January 1948--19 July 2019.
Parents: Nathan and Peggy Wirshbo.
Education: Hunter College BA 1968, University of Pennsylvania PhD 1976.
Positions: San Diego State University 1977-1979, Ohio State University 1979-82, lecturer (eventually tenured) at University of California San Diego, Department of Literature 1982-2019.
Dissertation: "Attitudes toward the past in Homer and Hesiod," 1976, directed by Martin Ostwald.
(Written and provided by Ward Briggs)
Lee, Mark Owen (1930-2019)
Fr. M. Owen Lee (as he preferred to be called) was a beloved fixture at the University of Toronto, where he spent nearly 30 years of his life, and a perceptive critic of Latin poetry. He is, however, best remembered by the sophisticated public as a longtime panelist on the Texaco Opera Quiz, where he answered questions with remarkable alacrity (he was often the first to raise his hand to answer) and with a seemingly fathomless depth of knowledge about opera.
(Written by David T. West)
Grace Starry West (1946-2019)
Grace Starry West, 72, died of complications from lung cancer on Sunday, May 19 at her home. She was a member of the SCS since 1973, Chair of the Local Arrangements Committee in 1999, and trustee of the Vergilian Society from 1986-1989. Her name will be especially familiar to Vergilians on account of her groundbreaking UCLA dissertation on “Women in Vergil’s Aeneid” (1975), and to students and colleagues from the University of Dallas, where she helped Classics grow into an outstanding program with three tenured faculty members and a steady flow of majors. As John F. Miller, Professor of Classics at the University of Virginia, recently observed: “Her work on Virgilian women was pioneering; her leadership at Dallas admirable.”
(From the University of Mississippi's website)
Former University of Mississippi professor Lucy Turnbull will always be remembered as a beloved educator who could make her curriculum both easy to understand and infinitely interesting to her students, a mentor and a champion of civil rights at Ole Miss.
Her enthusiasm for the classics was contagious, which propelled her students to success in her art history, archaeology, mythology and classical civilization courses. Turnbull, 87, of Oxford, joined the university faculty in 1961 and taught until 1990. She died Sunday (April 21).
(From the Cornell Chronicle)
Classics scholar David Mankin, beloved by Cornell students for his inspiring and idiosyncratic teaching style, compassionate mentorship and the signature black sunglasses he wore to class, died April 24 after a brief illness. He was 61.
Mankin, associate professor emeritus of classics, was the longtime instructor of Greek Mythology, a perennially oversubscribed course with an enthusiastic following. Many students described it as one of the most memorable and meaningful courses of their Cornell careers.
He was a scholar of Latin prose and poetry, with publications including commentaries on the “Epodes of Horace” (Cambridge University Press, 1995) and on the concluding book of Cicero’s “On the Orator” (Cambridge University Press, 2011).
(Republished from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
In a career that lasted over 70 years, Jerry Clack wore many different hats.
From a youthful stint at the Swedish Legation in Washington and four years with UNESCO to public relations and accounting positions with AAA, Coca-Cola and the American Heart Association, he went on to assume directorship of Allegheny County’s chapter of The March of Dimes in 1953. His 15-year tenure with March of Dimes saw the development of two anti-polio vaccines, that of Jonas Salk at University of Pittsburgh and the oral vaccine of Albert Sabin.
Mr. Clack died Monday at Shadyside Hospital due to heart failure.
(Posted, with permission, from Meaningful Funerals)
Dr. John C. Traupman, of Penn Valley / Narberth, PA., a World War II veteran, University Professor, author of translation dictionaries of languages in Latin and German to English, and a prolific author of may Latin related subjects, died on February 18, 2019 at the Bryn Mawr Hospital. He was 96. His wife Pauline Temmel Traupman, whom he was married to for 70 years, died on December 7, 2018.
(Written by Meredith Hoppin, Department of Classics, Williams College)
Charles John Fuqua, Garfield Professor of Ancient Languages Emeritus at Williams College, died peacefully at his home in Williamstown, Massachusetts on 19 January 2019, his wife, three children, and grandchild at his side. He was 83 years old.
Philip Levine
September 8, 1922 - November 25, 2018
Dr. Philip Levine died at age 96 on Sunday, November 25, 2018. Born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, he moved to Beverly Hills in 1961 where he resided for the rest of his life. He leaves behind two sons, Jared and Dr. Harlan, who were his biggest source of pride, and four grandchildren, Zoe, Zachary, Hannah and Zane, who were a source of joy later in life.
(Written by Ralph Rosen and Joe Farrell, with assistance from Karen Faulkner and James O’Donnell)
Wesley D. Smith, Professor Emeritus of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, died at his home in Philadelphia on June 23, 2018. He was 88 years old.
