In Memoriam

From his wife, Ellen: “Dr. Robert Michael Williams aka Dr. R. Michael Williams untimely passed away on July 18, 2024.  Instead of winning the Nobel Prize for his lifetime work, he died unexpectedly.

“He is one of those unsung heroes, well known in the scientific community, without whom the modern world would not exist.  To summarize a fulfilling, exciting and productive life of a gifted humanitarian who shared his profound talent and intellectual achievements unselfishly with family, friends, colleagues and patients requires a proper biographical text.  He was a rare individual with laudable accomplishments who, without being pretentious, carried himself with precise dignity and professionalism with an absolutely profound knowledge of immunology and the biology of cancer. 

“Dr. Williams was the proud and only child of Mr. Robert Arvel Williams and Mrs. Eva Mae Williams.  As a loving child of …

from Norman’s 50th Reunion Essay:

“…. Beyond these headstrong episodes, I’ve realized what a lucky life has been granted me. After our parental generation’s 16 years of economic depression and world war (my mother’s family escaped Germany in 1939), I was born in the right place at the right time. It was a given our generation would advance and prosper beyond our parents. (Not a given now.)

I had the luck to apply to Yale just when the Ivy League broadly opened up to boys of my background; to enter the law firm world just when top tier firms likewise opened up; and to begin practice when there was a fair shot to grab the prized partner ring. Timing does matter and, for me, has made a strong difference. …”

Simon’s Yale years were interrupted twice (once for the 67-68 school year, once later), for reasons he explained in his reunion essays in both 1994 and 2019 (see below):

From his website: “Simon Whitney, MD, JD is a family physician and ethicist. He taught at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, for twenty-two years. He is retired from the practice of medicine but continues to publish and teach about medical ethics.

… Dr. Whitney has studied the Institutional Review Board system, including its origins, its triumphs, and its failures, since 2007. … In 2023, he published From Oversight to Overkill: Inside the Broken System That Blocks Medical Breakthroughs—And How We Can Fix It (Rivertowns Books). This book brings to life how scientists struggle …”

My best friend at Yale, Bill Sacco, passed away on February 10th, 2024.  Bill was one of the most talented photographers of our generation.

Our friendship began in sophomore year on the day we moved into Silliman College.  While everyone else was upstairs trying to make their new rooms livable, Bill and I converged downstairs in Silliman’s photographic darkroom.  We both looked at the enlarger.  “Schneider lenses,” I observed.  “Yes, but no Tiffin filters,” Bill commented.  Professional colleagues whom you also like!  This is one of the gifts that Yale can give.

Wentworth Earl Miller, Jr., fondly known as Earl by family, peacefully passed away on March 17, 2024, at the age of 76 following a long and courageous battle with cancer.  He is survived by his beloved 99-year-old mother, two sisters, seven brothers, three children, and five grandchildren.

Went was a graduate of Yale University and Yale Law School, a Rhodes Scholar, and the creator of LEEWS (Legal Essay Exam Writing Seminar), a successful law preparation …. 

from Legacy.com: William Francis Streicker, 76, passed away on March 1, 2024. He departed the world peacefully at his home in Richmond, Virginia, surrounded by family. Will was born on June 3, 1947 in Brooklyn, New York. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Yale University, attended medical school at New York University and completed his residency at the Medical College of Virginia. He was head of the Emergency Department of Johnston-Willis Hospital for ten years…

UPDATED comments, posted 4/8/24 Remembering Donald P. Ferguson, ’69 Mark Alden Branch’s “Old Yale” article, “The Stories Behind the Names,”, in Yale Alumni Magazine, November/December, 2023, focuses on five of the 35 Yale alumni killed in the Vietnam War. One of them, Donald Ferguson, ’69, is also part of another group of five men killed in that war, memorialized by a plaque, at the base of a flagpole flying the American flag, placed in 2018…

Ken Brown, who roomed with Richard Sophomore and Junior years offered the following for the class notes.

Richard L. Farren of New York City, age 76, died suddenly at his home on December 3, 2023.  Richard was a practicing attorney at the time of his death.  He graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in 1965.  He matriculated with the Yale Class of 1969 but graduated in three years …

Bruce was born May 12, 1947, in Detroit, Michigan. He grew up in Skokie, Illinois and attended Niles West High School where he became a state champion gymnast.

He studied economics as an undergraduate and for his PhD (Yale, 1972). For his graduate research he studied how human behaviors can cause departures from the principles of rational economics, a topic that was not well received at the time, but which (as Bruce would wryly note) led to a Nobel Prize for some later researchers.

William Charles (Bill) Pennington went to be with the Lord on July 14, 2023, surrounded by his loving family in Richardson, TX. He was 76 years old. Bill was born, along with his twin sister, Suzanne Marie, on March 28, 1947, in Chicago, Illinois to Charles Sheldon Pennington and Marcella Mary (Crossen) Pennington. He grew up in Lombard, IL, attending Glenbard East High School where he graduated as valedictorian. He graduated from Yale University, plus…

from Melissa S. Mundell, Lee’s wife: I just sent an email of an obituary for my husband, Lee Carter Mundell,  (See below) Afterwards I thought of some other things I should submit, in case they could be published as well. Lee worked at WYBC in those 1960s years when music was changing so dramatically. He did a morning show and someone he did not know left a sketch of him sitting at the broadcast desk,…

Nicholas (aka Nick) Hawkin was a bit older than the rest of us, and he carried himself with a grace and wit that were truly enviable.  His father was an Oxford grad and a British diplomat assigned to various offices in Mexico and South America.  His mother was Peruvian, and Nick was educated in South America and at boarding schools in England:  Elston Hall School, Nottinghamshire, England, and Ampleforth College, Ampleforth, England; Universite d’Aix-en-Provence, Jan.,…

James Vincent Minor III of Wilton CT died unexpectedly on April 1, 2023 in Norwalk Hospital at the age of 75. Jim was born to Betty and Dr. James Vincent Minor II in Norwalk CT. He is survived by his wife Andrea Byrne Minor and his three children James Vincent Minor IV, Sister Mary Hannah (Emily), Andrew Minor, and his beloved granddaughters Zoe and Holly. An accomplished academic, he studied at Portsmouth Abbey, then Yale,…

Editor’s Note: See Paul’s published works per Amazon Paul Francis Malamud, class of 1969, passed away from complications in heart surgery on October 26, 2022. Born in New York City in 1947, he moved with his parents, Ann and Bernard Malamud, to Corvallis, Oregon, in 1949. Though he would go on to live in Vermont, in Cambridge, and eventually in Washington, D.C., thoughts of Corvallis inspired wistfulness in him until the end of his life….

Summary from Wired Magazine:  Charles Apel’s resume: drops out of Yale in 1967 to become a hippie and get high with Jim Morrison. Lives in the jungles of Colombia to avoid the Vietnam War draft. Eventually pardoned by Jimmy Carter. Fathers seven children. Returns to school and earns a BA in 1999 and a chemistry PhD in 2003. Now works in the Astrochemistry Lab in the Space Science Division at NASA researching the origins of cellular life. Associate editor of Biosystems.