Category: Obituaries

STOUGHTON – Douglas A. Beard, age 46, passed away at his home in Stoughton on Friday, June 22, 2007. Loving husband of Patricia (Mitchell); father of Lindsay Mitchell; and son of Frank Beard and Althea Edgar (Bill). He is further survived by his identical twin, Ron (Lil and Matthew), of Maine. Doug will be missed by family, friends, and the entire University of Wisconsin- Madison athletic community.

Edwin Traisman, a food scientist who helped standardize McDonaldâ??s French fries and develop Cheez Whiz for Kraft Foods, as well as researching the risks of E. coli bacteria, died Tuesday in Madison, Wis. He was 91 and lived in Monona, Wis.

MADISON, Wis. (AP) â?? Edwin Traisman, a food scientist who created the process for freezing McDonald’s french fries and helped develop Cheez Whiz, has died at age 91.

Desiring a return to research, he went as a program manager at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Food Research Institute in 1970. In 1987, he helped initiate research on E. coli, which was then a little-known pathogen, according to a university news release. He was later inducted into the Wisconsin Meat Industry Hall of Fame.

Philip M. Kaiser, a retired diplomat and high-ranking Labor Department official who served as an ambassador to four nations, died of aspiration pneumonia May 24 at Sibley Memorial Hospital. He was 93.

He graduated from the University of Wisconsin, where he won a Rhodes scholarship.

While he was a University of Wisconsin administrator in the fall of 1968, the National Guard occupied the Madison campus for 10 days during a strike by African American students.

Maurer was a secretary to the Dean of Education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, while supporting her husband in school. In 1958 she left the work force to become a full-time mother.

Sharon Pero, the UW-Madison administrator in charge of managing the UW-Madison timetable and other key features on the PeopleSoft Student Center system, died suddenly at her home over the weekend at the age of 58.

Saadoun Hammadi, a longtime ally of Saddam Hussein and one of the most senior Iraq Baath party leaders, was reported dead on Friday. He was believed to be suffering from leukemia. Hammadi left Iraq in 2004 for medical treatment in Germany, but settled in Qatar in early 2005. Hammadi earned a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Wisconsin in 1956.

Nicholas “Nick” J. Polczinski, 39, Oconto Falls, died suddenly at home on Friday, Feb. 16, 2007. He was born July 31, 1967, in Oconto Falls to Lawrence and Ruth (Scheller) Polczinski. Nick grew up on the family farm, which at the time was on the very edge of the City of Oconto Falls and attended St. Anthony Catholic Grade School.

Tom Fairchild, a former state attorney general, state Supreme Court justice and federal appeals court judge, has died. He was 94.
Fairchild was remembered Tuesday as a magnanimous judge who remained humble and kind all his life.

Nelson Polsby, a UC Berkeley political scientist whose witty and astute observations on Congress, the electoral process and presidential politics influenced several generations of scholars, policymakers, journalists and other political animals, died at his Berkeley home Tuesday of complications of heart disease. He was 72.

Polsby became an expert on Congress almost by accident. At the outset of his academic career in 1960, he was asked to teach a course on Congress at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

Former University of Wisconsin System Regent and Republican Party activist Ody Fish died early Tuesday from complications due to cancer.

One of New Zealand’s greatest scientists, a Nobel Prize winner, has died at 79.

Alan MacDiarmid was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2000, along with Alan Heeger and Hideki Shirakawa, for discovering a way to make plastics conduct electricity.

He won a Fulbright Fellowship to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to study for a PhD, which he received in 1953.

Whatever Ody J. Fish did, he appeared to do very well, and that included serving on the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents even though he never went to college.

Ody J. Fish

Photo/File
Ody J. Fish (right) and former Gov. Warren P. Knowles (center) greet President Gerald Ford on a visit to Wisconsin in 1976. Fish served as manager of the 1976 Republican National Convention.

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Fish died of esophageal cancer Tuesday at his Pewaukee home. He was 81.

Whatever Ody J. Fish did, he appeared to do very well, and that included serving on the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents even though he never went to college.

Fish died of esophageal cancer Tuesday at his Pewaukee home. He was 81.

APPLETON � A 2001 Fox Valley Lutheran High School graduate who loved nature and adventure died Sunday after suffering multiple broken bones while climbing in California�s Owens River Gorge.

Ian Mack, 23, a 2005 graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison who studied environmental conservation and biology, had hiked and climbed in places as far-flung as Europe and the Pacific Coast.

Donald Osterbrock, astronomer, dies at 82SANTA CRUZ, Calif., Jan. 27 (UPI) — Donald Osterbrock, former director of Lick Observatory in California and author of a textbook on gaseous nebulae, has died at 82.

After several years as a professor at the University of Wisconsin, Osterbrock became director of Lick Observatory on Mount Hamilton in 1973.

William F. Thompson didn’t just love history and politics. He vigorously lived both.

Through his work as director of research and later as the state historian at the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison, he edited what’s considered the definitive history of the state, a six-volume series. The sixth volume he wrote himself.

A UW doctoral grad and Madison civic activist, Thompson died Jan. 13 at age 77.

Donald Osterbrock, a former director of Lick Observatory who is prominently linked with modern astrophysics, died Thursday while walking near his UC Santa Cruz office. He was 82.

He earned four degrees from the University of Chicago, held a postdoctoral fellowship at Princeton University and faculty positions at the California Institute of Technology and University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Another emeritus professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has passed away. Dr. Robert Bray, who worked for many years in the department of Meat and Animal Science, died on Sunday. He was 88.

MADISON – Professor emeritus Robert W. Bray, age 88, passed away peacefully on Sunday, Jan. 7, 2007. He joined the faculty in the Department of Meat and Animal Science in 1941, followed by a three-year stint with the Navy in World War II. He returned to spend the rest of his career at the university, retiring in 1984. He is credited with initiating the Meat Science teaching, research and extension programs.

MADISON � Otto Breitenbach, a former athletics administrator at the University of Wisconsin and commissioner of the Western Collegiate Hockey Association, has died at the age of 82.

Breitenbach had a heart attack Monday while watching the Wisconsin football team play Arkansas in the Capital One Bowl, university officials said. He died Tuesday at St. Mary’s Hospital.

MADISON – William H. Dodge, loving father and grandfather, died on Monday, Dec. 25, 2006, at the Peter and Ellen Johnson Hospice Residence. He taught transportation and public utilities at the UW Business School, retiring in 1990 after 26 years as a full professor. A memorial service was held on Saturday, Dec. 30, 2006, at CRESS FUNERAL HOME, 3610 Speedway Road in Madison.

Milwaukee labor leader John Zinos learned that dignity by working his way through the University of Wisconsin at Madison, a process that took 18 years. At one point, he held simultaneous part-time jobs as a restaurant dishwasher, state welfare investigator, home handyman and agent for a student dance band.

MADISON ââ?¬â?? E. David Cronon, the son of Edmund D. Cronon and Florence Meyer Cronon, passed away at age 82 on December 5 after a brief illness. Born in Minneapolis on March 11, 1924, he served in the Philippines during World War II and rose to the rank of 1st Lieutenant.

Professor E. David Cronon, 82, dean of the UW-Madison College of Letters and Science from 1974 to 1988, died Tuesday of heart disease.
At the time of his retirement, the college enrolled 21,000 students – up from 14,000 when he took the job as dean – and had 1,000 faculty members.

A former University of Wisconsin College of Letters and Sciences dean passed away Tuesday morning.

A native of Guthrie, Okla., Mecca graduated from St. Mary’s College in Indiana and earned master’s and doctorate degrees from the University of Wisconsin. She held nurse-instructor positions at hospitals in Indiana and Oklahoma, before joining the faculty at the University of Wisconsin in 1972. She was professor and associate dean for academic affairs at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Nursing when the State University of New York at Buffalo’s School of Nursing recruited her as their dean in 1991.

Lederberg earned her doctorate in 1950 at the University of Wisconsin, where her husband, just 22, had been appointed professor of genetics. It was at Madison at the Lederbergs made seminal discoveries, including a lab technique called replica plating that uses scraps of velvet to literally imprint identical bacterial colonies in Petri dishes.

Friedman briefly taught at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

Phil Myers, University of Wisconsin professor emeritus of mechanical engineering, passed away last Wednesday at the age of 90.

With a legal mind far sharper than the crease in his often-rumpled pants, Gordon Baldwin became the go-to person for questions on constitutional law.

Professor Gordon Baldwin, 77, one of UW-Madison’s best-known legal scholars since he joined the faculty in 1957, died over the weekend in Italy, where he was attending operas with his wife, Helen.

Gordon Baldwin, longtime faculty member of the University of Wisconsin Law School who lent his constitutional law expertise to myriad public causes over the years, is dead at the age of 77.

The Law School announced that Professor Baldwin died in his sleep either Saturday night or Sunday morning in Italy, where he and his wife Helen were attending operas, a longtime passion of the Madison couple.

Gordon Brewster Baldwin, University of Wisconsin Law School professor emeritus, passed away in his sleep this weekend after attending an opera in Italy with his wife.

Alma Baron helped propel the University of Wisconsin to a leading position in Womens’ Studies among major universities.

MADISON – Alma Fay Spann Baron was a tireless civic leader and an inspirational teacher who influenced thousands of lives not only in Madison, but worldwide.

Professor Alma Baron, 83, for many years one of UW-Extension’s best-known business professors, died Thursday at the Attic Angel Health Center.

A longtime professor and Extension meat scientist with the University of Wisconsin-Madison has died. Dr. Dennis Buege passed away last week due to complications of Mesothelioma. He was 61.

After the war (WWII) he accepted a research and teaching position at the University of Wisconsin and moved to Madison. In 1952 he became a full professor of physics. While at the University he served terms as Department Chair and Associate Dean of Letters and Science. Hugh’s true passion was scientific research and he was a mentor to forty-nine PhD level graduate students.

After the 1970 bombing of Sterling Hall in which a physics graduate student was killed, and years of valuable research destroyed Professor Richards’ leadership has been credited with preserving the personnel, focus and morale of the physics department.

Joseph Kauffman, 84, one of the architects of the Peace Corps in the early 1960s, died Friday of cancer, according to a representative from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He died at an assisted-living facility in Madison, where he had been a resident.

During the presidency of John F. Kennedy, Kauffman was based in the office of R. Sargent Shriver Jr., where he helped develop the Peace Corps program. Kauffman was appointed the program’s first director of training in 1961. He also helped establish recruitment centers and training programs on college and university campuses and he trained volunteers for overseas service.

Joseph F. Kauffman, former UW-Madison dean of student affairs, one of the architects of the Peace Corps and an influential educator, died Friday in Middleton at age 84 after a battle with cancer.
“Joe Kauffman will be remembered as one of the great contributors to the success of this university,” said Chancellor John D. Wiley. “He trained many of the university’s top leaders during his long association with the campus. His legacy is alive and well across UW-Madison.”

MADISON, Wis. – One of the architects of the Peace Corps, Joseph Kauffman, has died of cancer, according to a news release from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He was 84.

James C. Hickman, 79, dean of the UW-Madison Business School from 1985 to 1990, died Sunday at the Don and Marilyn Anderson HospiceCare Center of liver cancer.

She graduated from Wisconsin High School and the University of Wisconsin with a degree in home economics and became a buyer for Gimbels and the Boston Store. She returned to the UW and received a certificate in physical therapy. She was an ass’t professor of physical therapy at the University of Wisconsin Madison until her retirement in 1986.

A well-known expert in dairy nutrition with the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the U.S. Dairy Forage Research Center has passed away.

He was employed by the University of Wisconsin, Physical Plant Department, before retiring in 1979.

A civil engineering graduate of Purdue University, he served on the engineering faculties of Purdue University and the University of Wisconsin for more than 20 years.

Before her retirement in June of this year, she was the director of the Mills Music Library, University of Wisconsin-Madison for 20 years.

Leon Epstein, 87, dean of the UW-Madison College of Letters and Science during one of the most tumultuous periods in the school’s history, died Tuesday in a Madison hospital.
Epstein suffered head injuries from a fall in his apartment Saturday and never recovered consciousness, friends said.

He was dean of the College of Letters and Science from 1965 to 1969, a time that coincided with student protests, sit-ins and marches marked by clouds of tear gas and numerous arrests as students opposed the Vietnam War.

Leon D. Epstein, age 87, died on Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2006. An emeritus professor of political science, he had been a member of the faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Madison from 1948 to 1988. He chaired his department from 1960 to 1963, served as dean of the College of Letters and Science from 1965 to 1969 and held at various times Bascom, Hilldale and WARF professorships.

Candace was employed with the University of Wisconsin Food Services for more than 15 years.

Mary Jean Bartholomew, age 79, passed away on Sunday, July 30, 2006, at her home. She was born on Feb. 21, 1927, in Pardeeville, the daughter of Robert and Beatrice Lafler. Mary was united in marriage to Robert E. Bartholomew on Feb. 9, 1946, in Arlington.

Peterson served as Dean of Women at the University of Wisconsin from 1956 to 1962, then as the University Dean of Students from 1962 to 1967.

She attended UW-Madison for her undergraduate and graduate work. From 1964-1971, she worked in educational research at UW-Madison. She became very active in the Wisconsin Alumni Association at UW-Madison, later serving as the president of the Sarasota Alumni Club.