In Memoriam
Farewell tributes to University of Utah friends we wish to remember
Charles R. Brown JD’71, a former president of the Utah State Bar and a recipient of the Distinguished Lawyer of the Year award, passed away at his home in Salt Lake City on October 8, of causes related to Parkinson’s disease.
Born in Twin Falls, Idaho, on August 25, 1945, his heart was always in Idaho and its majestic mountains, especially the Stanley Basin and Sawtooth Mountains. Although he lived in Salt Lake City for the last 43 years, he was, and always will be, an Idahoan, cherishing the friendships of his youth.
As a young man, he was a firefighter, a “Hot Shot” with the US Forest Service during the summers, instilling in him a healthy respect and love for the outdoors and the responsibility to be a caretaker.
Brown attended Northwestern University, University of Oregon, Georgetown University, and the University of Utah law school. He was a member of the Utah and Idaho state bars. Throughout his legal career, he received numerous honors. He had an ardent love for music, especially Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and opera, which grew into a passion. In addition, he loved film and literature. He enjoyed skiing, white water rafting, and riding his motorcycle. His grandchildren were the light of his life, and he attended rock concerts with his daughters. They played hard, laughed hard, and loved each other unconditionally. He genuinely enjoyed his time with his colleagues at the law firm. He was widely admired and loved not only for his intelligence and generosity, but also for his quirkiness and wit.
Brown was preceded in death by his parents, Max and Elizabeth Torgesen Brown, of Twin Falls, Idaho. He is survived by his wife Elke; daughters Andrea Brown-Christensen (Kent) and Sydney Jones (Kyle); three grandchildren; a sister Diana Belka (Wayne); and brother Michael Brown (Vivian).
Susan Eccles Denkers, longtime friend of the University of Utah, and a founding member of the Willard L. Eccles Foundation and the Stephen G. and Susan E. Denkers Family Foundation, passed away on October 23, from pancreatic cancer. She was 81.
Born November 17, 1935, in Ogden, Utah, she was the daughter of Willard L. and Ruth Pierpont Eccles. She attended Polk Elementary, Central Middle School, and her beloved Ogden High. She graduated from Stephens College, in Columbia, Missouri, in 1955. She and Stephen G. Denkers were married on September 15, 1956, in Ogden, Utah.
Active in the Ogden community, she led the Junior League of Ogden, first as vice president, then as president; established the Sub for Santa program in Ogden; served on the board of the Salvation Army for 14 years; and supported the cause of women’s and children’s health through Planned Parenthood, The Midtown Clinic, and the Ogden School Foundation.
As a YWCA board member, she became especially involved in one of its programs, the Your Community Connection (YCC) of Ogden, providing vital community services to families and individuals at risk in Northern Utah. She served as its president for two years and as a committee member for 12 years. Active in environmental issues, Denkers was a board member of The Nature Conservatory of Utah, Ducks Unlimited, the Ogden Nature Center, and Weber Pathways.
Denkers was known as a kind, friendly, generous, spirited woman, all without pretention in any way. She was her own person, quietly proud of her heritage, but shunned public accolades and fanfare of any kind. She enjoyed spending summers in Sun Valley, Idaho and winters in Indian Wells, California. She and her husband traveled extensively throughout the world. She also enjoyed playing a little golf, fly-fishing, and gardening.
Denkers is survived by her husband, Stephen G. Denkers, Ogden; son, Stephen Eccles Denkers, Salt Lake City; daughter, Julie Denkers-Bishop; several grandchildren; and sister Barbara E. Coit-Yeager.
Amy Lee Ehr BS’89 passed away suddenly on October 5, in Bossier City, Louisiana. She was 54 years old.
Born August 8, 1963, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, she received a bachelor’s degree in parks, recreation, and tourism from the College of Health at the University of Utah.
Ehr was known as a delight and loved by all those who knew and cared for her. Her sister, Deborah, who lived just blocks from her for years in Salt Lake City, says they could finish each other’s jokes and feels lost without her. “Every bit of her was heart. Love. A heart of gold broken down into ash by failing much too soon. Every day is another day without her.” Deborah now lives in Port Washington, Wisconsin.
Ehr leaves behind her smile and laughter, siblings, parents, aunts, nieces, a nephew, and one adorable year-old great-nephew, Luke Owen Slayton.
ChenWei Guo, a student from China studying computer science in the College of Engineering, was tragically and fatally shot October 30, in a carjacking attempt near campus.
Born in Beijing, Guo came to the U.S. in 2012 and was dreaming to one day have his own consulting company. He enjoyed skydiving, skiing, horseback riding, dancing, and modern fashion. A first-year student at the U, he worked as a peer advisor in the U’s International Student and Scholar Services Office.
“This senseless act of violence has shaken our community and ended the life of a dear son, true friend, and promising scholar,” noted U President David W. Pershing in a statement to the campus community. “By all accounts, ChenWei was a wonderful young man, and we mourn his death.”
The College of Engineering also issued a statement saying, “On behalf of the entire College of Engineering family, we want to express our sincerest and personal condolences to ChenWei’s family, friends, and fellow students across the campus who knew him well. His death is a loss to the college, the campus, and the community.” As the college is dedicated to developing its students’ potential for the benefit of humanity, Guo aspired to a career that was focused on making life better. “We are deeply saddened by his loss and unnerved by the violence that took his life so unexpectedly.”
Richard Oliver Hayes BS’50, passed away December 23, 2014 in Broomfield, Colorado.
Hayes was born in Huntington Park, California, on January 18, 1925, to Fred Leon Hayes and Estelle Stewart Hayes. He grew up in Bakersfield, California, as their beloved only child and was known as “Dick” to his many friends. He graduated from Kern County Union High School in 1943.
After graduating, Hayes worked two months for the Bakersfield Mosquito Abatement District before enlisting July 1, 1943, in the U.S. Navy. He received officers training as a midshipman deck officer before serving in the Pacific fleet. His combat operations included several battles in the Philippine Islands and Borneo, for which he was awarded three stars. Hayes received an honorary discharge to inactive reserve status in July 1946 at the end of the war.
He immediately began his academic pursuits to become an entomologist and graduated from the University of California in 1948 with a bachelor’s degree in zoology. He earned a master’s degree in invertebrate zoology from the University of Utah in 1950, and a doctorate in medical entomology from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, in 1953.
While at Cornell, Hayes met undergraduate Carol Burns on a blind date, they married in October, 1952, and then moved to California where Hayes began his work as a medical entomologist for the U.S. Public Health Service at the Bakersfield field station.
Hayes was preceded in death by his wife and parents. He is survived by his children Eric A. Hayes (Kathy), Lorraine H. Trotter (Walter), Nancy H. Shepherd (Henry), and Paul F. Hayes.
Dolleen Wakefield Jewett BS’58, who served as director of nursing for the Davis County Health Department for 21 years and started the Women Infant Children (WIC) program there, passed away peacefully on October 7, in Bountiful, Utah.
She was born August 5, 1922, in Huntington, Utah, the sixth of nine children of Amos Zelph and Essie Jensen Wakefield. When she was 13, she moved with her family to Salt Lake City and later graduated from South High School.
At the start of World War II she entered nurse's training spending three years at St. Marks School of Nursing. After graduating, in 1944 she joined the Army Nurse Corps. The European conflict was ending, so she was sent to the Naval Hospital in Oakland, California to care for the many injured sailors and marines coming from the Pacific Theater. Her nursing career lasted her entire life, retiring in 1987, where she gained a wide variety of experiences, including in public health for Salt Lake County. She went back to school and earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing from the University of Utah. During her career, she supervised school nurses, immunization and well-child clinics, and established the first home-care agency in Davis County.
She married Ernest Duain Jewett and they raised two daughters. She loved reading and gardening and always supported her husband as he pursued his many interests. She was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She is beloved by her family and friends for her kindness, generosity, and selfless service.
Jewett was preceded in death by her parents; her husband; infant daughter Susan Carol; brothers Blair, Douglas, Bruce and Hal Wakefield; and sisters Patsy (Dick) Bell and Nina (Darryl) Vaught. She is survived by her daughters Sharlene (Don) Greenfield and Marilyn (Edward) Sughrue, and several grandchildren.
Tom Mathews, Jr. BS’49, a Salt Lake Tribune staff writer in the 1940s and ’50s who went on to help found or develop the U.S. Peace Corps, Common Cause, and the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, died October 14. He was 96.
Mathews grew up in Salt Lake City and attended the University of Utah before joining the U.S. Army, where he was a member of the 10th Mountain Division during World War II, an armed ski patrol that fought in the mountains of Italy.
After returning to Utah, he worked for The Salt Lake Tribune and later the San Francisco Chronicle. He was involved in John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign in 1960. After Kennedy’s election, he became Sargent Shriver’s chief administrative aide at the newly founded Peace Corps.
He went on to be a founding partner with Craver, Mathews, Smith & Co., a public relations firm with clients including the Sierra Club, Planned Parenthood, Handgun Control, and the League of Women Voters. The firm also served as a direct mail fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee.
Mathews helped John Gardner with the founding of the good-government group Common Cause and became that organization’s vice president. He was public relations director for the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City and served as assistant secretary of state for congressional relations. He was Washington press chief for Robert F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign in 1968, before RFK’s assassination. In 1992, Mathews was given the University of Utah’s emeritus alumni award for his many accomplishments.
He married Bonnie Johnson in 1942, and they had three children: Thomas Jr., Colin, and Anne. He later married Ann Anderson.
JD Moffat BS’64, local music legend, died on October 4, after a lengthy illness. He was 75 years old. Moffat had a rich and full career performing with such notable artists as Lou Rawls, John Lee Hooker, and Ray Charles; playing for many years locally, nationally, and internationally.
Born in Salt Lake City, on February 27, 1942, to Daniel and Agnes Moffat, he and his sister, Marty, spent their childhood splitting time between Salt Lake City and Alta, where their grandfather, George Watson, was the honorary Mayor. His grandmother, Agnes Watson, was the musical influence in his life, introducing him to the guitar at age 7.
Moffat attended Menlo School for Boys in California in his junior high and high school years, where he excelled in baseball and basketball. After receiving his undergraduate degree in sociology from the University of Utah, he graduated from Penn State University with a degree in political science and from Wharton School of Business with a master's degree. He was proud of his affiliation with the Beta Theta Pi Fraternity.
With a lifelong passion for music, he loved sharing it and inspiring others. In recent years, he played regularly at the Bayou in Salt Lake City. In addition to his music career, he taught in Salt Lake City high schools and the University of Utah, touching the lives of countless students.
On the 4th of July 1991, he married Alison Bradshaw, reconnecting with her after a childhood romance at the age of 12. They spent their married years in Holladay, celebrating many happy times with family. He was a lifelong Episcopalian, a member of All Saints Episcopal Church in recent years.
He is survived by his wife; stepchildren, Matthew (Cindy) Bradshaw, Jane (Tyler) Bushnell, Jonathan (Jessica) Bradshaw; and six grandchildren.
John Greenwood Moore MD’61 died in October.
Born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, in 1935, to Perry Randolph and Mary Clay Moore, his family later moved to Salt Lake City, where he graduated West High School. He continued his education in Minnesota and California before obtaining his medical degree at the University of Utah in 1961. Thus began his lifelong journey of dedicated and selfless service toward his fellow man.
Moore started his military career in Vietnam in 1966 as a staff physician and chief of medical services at military hospitals in Quy Nho’n and Chu Lai. He received the Vietnam Service Medal, Vietnam Campaign Medal, National Defense Medal, and the Bronze Star. From 1971 to 1973, Moore served as staff physician with the 151st U.S. Air Force Dispensary before joining the Army Reserves as the command surgeon for the 96th. In 1987 he assumed command of the 328th Combat Support Hospital and led a deployed team of nearly 600 soldiers in support of operations Desert Storm and Desert Shield. Moore’s many deployments included work in Kenya, Guatemala, Paraguay, and Kosovo, as well as aboard the U.S.S. Hope in Nigeria. His illustrious military experience of nearly 35 years culminated in 2001 when he received the Legion of Merit award, one of the most prestigious honors in the military.
Tirelessly administering to his fellow veterans at the Salt Lake City Veteran's Hospital, he also traveled the world presenting his research as a member of the International Society for Chronobiology. After decades of performing medical research and teaching medicine at the U, Moore was bestowed the distinguished title Professor Emeritus in Gastroenterology. He continued working at the eponymous John G. Moore G.I. Endoscopy Center at the VA, until fully retiring in 2012.
Also an athlete, Moore climbed the North Face of Mt. Everest, was the Utah State Squash Champion, and enjoyed skiing, biking, rafting, and playing tennis, rugby, and ice hockey. He was a caring husband and father, and a man for all seasons. He was robust, did everything with gusto, and also was humble and helped countless people throughout his life. Contributing to society and being productive, he was a strong proponent of giving back to the community. His sense of humor will be missed and remembered by all who knew him.
Moore was preceded in death by his parents and sister Jody. He is survived by his loving and devoted wife, Lisa; beloved and caring daughters Suzanna John and Camilla; son-in-law, Jeremy Rosenberger; twin brother Mark (Carol) and brother Clay (Sylvia); and extended family and friends.
Ferron Allred Olson BS’53 PhD’56, a former chair of the U’s Department of Metallurgical Engineering for eight years, and a former director of the Utah Mining and Minerals Research Institute for 11 years, passed away peacefully at home on October 14 from causes incident to age. He was 96.
Born in Tooele, Utah on July 2, 1921, to John Ernest Olson and Harriet Cynthia Allred Olson, he grew up in Vernon, Tooele County, Utah. World War II took him to the Pacific Theater where he served as an Army Signal Corps radio specialist. He met Donna Lee Jefferies during military training and they married on February 1, 1944. During their 68-year marriage, she stood faithfully by his side as he moved through life as a soldier, farmer, carpenter, college student, chemist, and professor.
After graduating from the U with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and a doctorate in fuel technology, Olson spent five years at Shell Development Company in California. He then returned to the U and his true love of teaching. In 1974-75 he served as a Fulbright-Hayes Professor in Yugoslavia, returning briefly five years later as a Fulbright-Hayes Distinguished Professor. He retired—reluctantly—two days shy of his 75th birthday. He dearly loved the challenging but rewarding life of a professor.
Olson loved being outdoors with family, back-packing, cross country skiing, and hunting. In his later years, he turned to writing biographies, a novel, and short stories. He and his wife traveled through all 50 states and many parts of the world, but mostly he loved spending time at the mountain cabin he designed and built himself. His greatest joy in life was his wonderful wife Donna and their children.
An active member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints his entire life, he served in many leadership positions, including in Yugoslavia, on missions with his wife, and as a volunteer at the Salt Lake Veterans’ Hospital for 10 years.
Olson is survived by his children, Kandace Kae (Keith) Prisbrey, Randall J (Ruth), Paul Ferron (Jill, deceased, then Camille), Jeffery Ernest, (Julie), Richard John (Marilyn), and many grandchildren.
William Werner Orrison MBA’02 died of a neuro-degenerative disorder, on October 19, in Las Vegas, Nevada. He was 68 years old.
Born on April 2, 1949, in Louisville, Kentucky, he was the son of Agnes Rutherford Miller Orrison and Dr. William Werner Orrison, Sr. Growing up in rural Kansas, he dreamed of joining his father in practice as a medical doctor. He attended the University of Kansas on an ROTC scholarship and became commander of his Air Force squadron. However, at the Phi Gamma Delta house he was known as “Doc,” for his unlicensed diagnostic skills. He graduated from UK in 1971 with a degree in chemistry.
Later, while a second-year student at the UK School of Medicine, Orrison encouraged his 52-year-old father to undergo elective heart surgery. His father died on the operating table. Guilt-ridden, Orrison dropped out of medical school. However, the U.S. Air Force gave him the option to repay his college scholarship as a sewer technician or resume his studies toward becoming a physician. Dr. William Werner Orrison, Jr. graduated from medical school in 1975.
After a medical internship at the University of Wisconsin, he did a double residency in neurology and radiology, finishing in 1981. During his residency, he met a nurse, Rebecca Spiller, and they married in 1982 and had three children together.
Orrison completed two fellowships in neuroradiology, the first at Ulleval Hospital in Oslo, Norway in 1981; the second at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. He returned to fulfill his obligation to the government as chief of neuroradiology and later as chairman of radiology at Keesler Air Force Base, in Biloxi, Mississippi, where he attained the rank of major. After his service, he entered academic medicine at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque and led the medical school’s efforts in neuroradiology, special procedures, non-invasive diagnosis, and MRI. In 1997 he became professor and chairman of radiology at the University of Utah School of Medicine. Colleagues recall his cutting-edge research in magnetoencephalography (MEG) and his unfailing empathy for patients and their families.
To prepare himself to successfully promote his medical inventions, he earned an MBA at the U in 2002. The following year he left academic medicine to open advanced medical-imaging centers in Las Vegas. He wrote five textbooks on medical imaging, including the bible on the subject, Neuroimaging (Saunders, 2000).
Orrison’s marriage to his first wife ended in 2011, and in 2014 he married Heather Margaret Stanley. With his health in decline in late 2016, he defied the odds and traveled to Alaska, Vancouver, the Rocky Mountains, and last August, returned to his native Kansas, with family and friends, to watch the solar eclipse.
Orrison was preceded in death by his parents. He is survived by his wife; his children William Werner III, Jennifer Jean, and Michael Matthew; stepchildren Drew and Finn; and sisters Mary Orrison (Gregory) Woods and Agnes Orrison “Ann” (Bryan) Miquelon.
Peter Sluglett, former professor of Middle Eastern history at the University of Utah and director of the U’s Middle East Center from 1994 to 2000, died on August 10, in Singapore.
Born in 1943, he was a noted historian of modern Iraq. Most recently he was employed as a professor at the Middle East Institute of the National University of Singapore, where he also had served as its director. From 1974-1984, he taught at the University of Durham in his native Britain. He is survived by his wife, Shohreh Eslami.
“Peter was a dear friend whom my wife and I first met in the mid-1980s,” says Peter Von Sivers, associate professor of Middle Eastern history at the U. “During his time as director of the Middle East Center and as a colleague in the History Department we shared many happy hours of scholarly discussion, academic planning, and student advising. Immensely knowledgeable in the field of modern Middle Eastern history, he taught me much about the complexities of Arab nationalism. Peter was a gracious and generous host and was renowned for the spirited dinners he gave for friends, students, and visitors. My wife and I were looking forward with great anticipation and fondness to his and Shohreh’s imminent return to Salt Lake and continue to grieve the loss of our remarkable friend.”
Sluglett is perhaps best known for his book Iraq Since 1958: From Revolution to Dictatorship, coauthored with his late first wife, Marion Farouk-Sluglett, (I.B.Tauris, 2001). The book is known as the definitive political history of modern Iraq and the first work to explore the emergence of modern Iraq from its foundation in 1920 into the 21st century. They went on to produce a wide range of essays on land tenure, labor movement, ideological trends, and historiography. More recently, he published Britain in Iraq: Contriving King and Country (Columbia University Press, 2007). First published in 1976, Britain in Iraq 1914-1932 has long been recognized as the definitive history of the period, providing a meticulous and engaging account of Britain’s political involvement in Iraq as well as rare insights into the motives behind the founding of the Iraqi state.
“Peter was a genuine scholar on Middle Eastern history, who introduced modern Iraq to students and scholars across the world,” says Sheikh Safiullah, who co-taught a class with Sluglett at the U. Safiullah is adjunct assistant professor of Middle Eastern History and director of Salt Lake City’s Marmalade Library. “He brought clarity to the academic community on how to understand Iraq’s fall from a kingdom and its descent into rule under Saddam Hussein. Besides his scholarly writing, Peter also maintained an impressive network with Middle Eastern scholars and students worldwide. He will be deeply missed by all his friends and colleagues.”