The Memorial Wall

With profound sadness, we announce the passing of Dr. Robert George Grossman. As the most loving husband, father, father-in-law and grandfather in the universe, he was our North Star, our compass forward. We are grieving deeply as a family. We are also filled with gratitude for the life he led and the legacy he leaves.

Born on January 24, 1933, in The Bronx, New York, Dr. Grossman is preceded in death by his parents, Dr. Ferenc Grossman and Vivian Eisenberg Grossman. Dr. Grossman was an only child and was adored by his parents who were both immigrants to the United States. Ferenc, who was born in Hungary, was a family practice doctor, and Vivian, who was born in Lithuania, was a grade schoolteacher. Together, they believed that hard work and caring for others were traits to live by and they were successful in their new country. Ferenc and Vivian's greatest love was for their son, and they nurtured Dr. Grossman's interests in science, math, poetry, literature, philosophy and classical music. Ferenc never refused a patient and would treat patients even if they could not afford to pay. In return, grateful families would leave baskets of eggs or bottles of milk on their doorstep. That legacy of caring for others made an indelible mark on Dr. Grossman, who made that a cornerstone of his life's work. Dr. Grossman would treat his patients with compassion and dignity, no matter who they were. He would also make house calls, taking his old school black doctor's bag to the homes of patients who needed help. He was a listener and had a calm and kind manner and would take the time to really hear what his patients were saying and then proceed to help them.

Dr. Grossman honored both his mother and father by becoming a practicing neurosurgeon and a professor. Dr. Grossman had a memorable and loving childhood in New York City and graduated from the Horace Mann School in 1949. He would recall many happy times growing up -- from once getting locked in the Bronx Zoo with a group of friends after dark to his Bar Mitzvah at age 13 and meeting his future wife, Ellin, when he was 16 years old, and she was just 15. It was absolute love at first sight and they were together from that moment on. They were married in 1955 at Ellin's parent's apartment on the Upper East Side and celebrated their 66th wedding anniversary this past June.

Dr. Grossman attended Swarthmore College and graduated in 1953 with a Bachelor of Arts degree with Honors in the Division of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. Always intellectually curious, Dr. Grossman was just 16 years old when he started Swarthmore. Swarthmore held some of Dr. Grossman's fondest memories and he spent the rest of his life remarking on the positive impact the college had on him from best friends to a top-notch education.

Upon graduation, Dr. Grossman attended medical school in New York City and received his M.D., College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, in 1957. Next, Dr. Grossman completed his postgraduate training as an Intern in the surgical service at The University of Rochester, Strong Memorial in 1958.

Dr. Grossman then proudly served the United States of America as a Captain, Medical Corps, U.S.A.R., Department of Neurophysiology. For two years, from 1958 to 1960 Dr. Grossman worked at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, Washington, D.C. in the Laboratory of Robert Galambos, M.D.

From 1960 to 1962, Dr. Grossman was a Resident and in 1963, he was Chief Resident, Department of Neurological Surgery, Neurological Institute of New York, at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center.

Upon finishing his residency in 1963, Dr. Grossman moved to Texas and accepted his first neurosurgical position as Associate Professor, Division of Neurological Surgery, at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. Dr. Grossman stayed there until 1968, becoming an instructor and then Assistant Professor. It was while he was at work at Parkland Hospital on November 22, 1963 that Dr. Grossman received a phone call to rush to Trauma Room One. President John F. Kennedy had been shot and Dr. Grossman, as one of the two neurosurgeons on staff, was summoned to attend the president.

In 1969, Dr. Grossman and his family moved back to New York where he was appointed Associate Professor and then Professor of Neurological Surgery, Department of Neurological Surgery, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York. And, in 1973, Dr. Grossman returned to Texas -- this time to Galveston -- to be the Professor of Surgery and Chief of the Division of Neurological Surgery. It was his first Chairmanship and Dr. Grossman was proud of the work accomplished in Galveston.

In 1980, Dr. Grossman was appointed Chairman, Department of Neurosurgery, The Methodist Hospital, in Houston, Texas. Additionally, Dr. Grossman was appointed the Chairman of Neurosurgery at Baylor College of Medicine from 1980 to 2005. Dr. Grossman remained the Chairman of Neurosurgery at The Methodist Hospital from 1980 to 2013 and has continued to be a Professor of Neurosurgery since 2013. Dr. Grossman was also the Founder and First Director, Neurological Institute, The Methodist Hospital in 2005.

In 2004, Dr. Grossman founded North American Clinical Trials Network (NACTN) for Spinal Cord Injury (SCI). NACTN's mission is to continually advance the quality of care and the quality of life of people with spinal cord injury through clinical trials of new therapy that provide strong evidence of safety and effectiveness.

Not many people make it to age 88 and still work, but Dr. Grossman's passion for advancing medicine never stopped. He was very proud that he was able to work his entire life and never retired. He believed with 24 hours in a day, much could be accomplished. And so he did.

Dr. Grossman had a keen interest in helping patients with epilepsy, traumatic brain injury, Parkinson's Disease, spinal cord injury and brain tumors. He made an impact in both helping patients as well as making scientific contributions in all of those neurological areas. From 1960 until 2012, Dr. Grossman performed more than 8,000 major neurosurgical operations.

It was common for Dr. Grossman to be at dinner or a grandchild's school event and have people walk over to say how much they appreciated his care for them or a family member. Those comments always brought him joy that he was able to help make a difference.

Dr. Grossman created his own filing system that became his signature: a stack of white index cards, wrapped in a green rubber band that he kept in the pocket of his white doctor's coat or the front of his button-down shirt. Dr. Grossman would keep detailed notes about his patients and would constantly add to the notes to ensure their care. And he also would keep notes on books he wanted to read, PBS shows to watch and notes about which friend was having a birthday, an anniversary, or a baby.

His dedication for training other doctors to become neurosurgeons was his calling. He was extremely proud of the fact that the neurosurgeons he trained and worked with are now among the leaders in the field in Houston and around the country. Dr. Grossman trained two percent of the neurosurgeons in the United States.

Additionally, Dr. Grossman had a keen interest in scientific research. He was a prolific writer, and wrote eight medical books, including Medical Neurobiology: Neuroanatomical and Neurophysiological Principles Basic to Clinical Neuroscience. Dr. Grossman also wrote 216 articles for scientific journals and chapters in 52 different medical textbooks.

Dr. Grossman served on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Neurosurgery, Neurosurgery and World Neurosurgery. Additionally, he served as Chair, American Board of Neurological Surgeons and President of the Society of Neurological Surgeons. He was a member of the Christopher Reeve Foundation International Research Consortium Advisory Panel and helped guide their research program. In Houston, Dr. Grossman helped found the Houston chapter of the Epilepsy Association Texas and was involved with TIRR and the Houston Area Parkinson's Society.

Dr. Grossman was awarded many honors and some of his most cherished were accepting the Cushing Medal from the American Association of Neurological Surgeons, 2007, for service to Neurosurgery; and the Albert and Ellen Grass Foundation Prize and Medal from the Society of Neurological Surgeons, 1988, for continuous commitment to research in the neurosciences.

Outside of work, Dr. Grossman had numerous interests: photography, sundials, astronomy, sailing and fly fishing. He was a prolific reader and read everything from Greek and Roman classics to English poetry and mystery novels. Dr. Grossman was perennially cheerful, upbeat and a joy to be around. People would always remark that Dr. Grossman was a true gentleman -- and his calm, reassuring demeanor are going to be missed.

And even though he was so proud of his professional accomplishments, Dr. Grossman was even more proud of his family. And it all started with Ellin. Theirs was a love story that knew no bounds. They were inseparable and devoted to one another.

Together, they traveled the world from France to Israel, Japan to Scotland, Egypt to Italy and beyond. They built a vacation home in Santa Fe, New Mexico that became their happy place, their true sanctuary. In Santa Fe, they would hike, birdwatch, eat, look at the stars, visit the library and the museums and enjoy friendships and camaraderie. At home in Houston, they and would attend productions of the Gilbert and Sullivan society, Alley Theater and the Houston Grand Opera among others. They would read books, exercise, and spend time with dear friends and family. They also had two wonderful Westie dogs that they loved and they also treasured their involvement with the West Highland White Terrier Club of Southeast Texas.

Dr. Grossman was always so proud of his family, who will forever love him. He is survived by the love of his life, Ellin and their children and grandchildren: Dr. Amy Coburn and husband Dr. Michael Coburn, along with their son Jeff Coburn and daughter Laura Coburn; daughter Kate Rose along with her son Joel Gottsegen and her daughter Claire Gottsegen; and daughter Jennifer Oakley and husband Bruce Oakley along with their children Jessica Sosa and her husband Jonathan Sosa, Sarah Oakley, Connor Albert, Paige Albert and William Robert Oakley, who was named after Dr. Grossman.

His nine grandchildren named him "Grumpy" -- which they all thought was funny because it was the furthest thing from the truth. He loved his grandchildren with all his heart and was always a source of information, someone to talk to and learn from and the creator of memorable times. The annual Grandchildren's New Year's Eve sleepovers are cherished memories. If a grandchild said they were interested in geology, a geode would be given to them. If they said they liked music, he would give them CDs of Mozart; if they were interested in geography, he would give them a globe. If they were interested in animals, he took them to the Galapagos Island. In truth, he was giving them the world. And they all knew it.

Dr. Grossman cared about people. He had the ability to make everyone feel special -- but that is because he really did think they were. For his family, he wasn't just working at his job, he was demonstrating how waking up early and going strong all day long allows you to get more out of each day; when he was given an award from TIRR just a few years ago, he accepted it with gratitude and then said "I still have much work to do." In his medical research, he was not just working to help try and find a cure for spinal cord paralysis but he was teaching his grandkids to think about others, to help those in need, to try and go further and search for solutions where none yet exist. When he used to go the grandchildren's schools to give a lecture about how the brain works, he was not talking about himself and his accomplishments, he was demonstrating how to be curious and to give back to others through selfless service. He believed helping and teaching others is a key to life. And, when he woke up every morning singing and telling Ellin that he loved her, he was teaching our family how to find joy and care for a spouse.

We don't know who revolves around whom in our family but we tend to think we all revolved around Dr. Grossman. It's no wonder that Dr. Grossman was fascinated by the cosmos, because in our family, simply put, he hung the moon.

As a family, we would like to thank Dr. Grossman's close friends and colleagues who helped care for him. It is a sad irony that a man whose life was devoted to the study of neurological diseases was confronted with Parkinson's Disease. Like everything else in his life, Dr. Grossman faced it bravely, squarely and gracefully. Dr. Grossman's medical team of Dr. Robert Jackson, Dr. Al Raizner and Dr. Eugene Lai were unparalleled in their expert care.

Muhammad Ali, the three-time world heavyweight boxing champion who helped define his turbulent times as the most charismatic and controversial sports figure of the 20th century, died on Friday, June 3, 2016, in a Phoenix-area hospital. He was 74.

His death was confirmed by Bob Gunnell, a family spokesman. The cause was septic shock, a family spokeswoman said.

Ali, who lived near Phoenix, had had Parkinson’s disease for more than 30 years. He was admitted to the hospital on Monday with what Mr. Gunnell said was a respiratory problem.

Ali was the most thrilling if not the best heavyweight ever, carrying into the ring a physically lyrical, unorthodox boxing style that fused speed, agility and power more seamlessly than that of any fighter before him.

But he was more than the sum of his athletic gifts. An agile mind, a buoyant personality, a brash self-confidence and an evolving set of personal convictions fostered a magnetism that the ring alone could not contain. He entertained as much with his mouth as with his fists, narrating his life with a patter of inventive doggerel. (“Me! Wheeeeee!”)

Ali was as polarizing a superstar as the sports world has ever produced — both admired and vilified in the 1960s and ’70s for his religious, political and social stances. His refusal to be drafted during the Vietnam War, his rejection of racial integration at the height of the civil rights movement, his conversion from Christianity to Islam and the changing of his “slave” name, Cassius Clay, to one bestowed by the separatist black sect he joined, the Lost-Found Nation of Islam, were perceived as serious threats by the conservative establishment and noble acts of defiance by the liberal opposition.

Loved or hated, he remained for 50 years one of the most recognizable people on the planet.

In later life Ali became something of a secular saint, a legend in soft focus. He was respected for having sacrificed more than three years of his boxing prime and untold millions of dollars for his antiwar principles after being banished from the ring; he was extolled for his un-self-conscious gallantry in the face of incurable illness, and he was beloved for his accommodating sweetness in public.

In 1996, he was trembling and nearly mute as he lit the Olympic caldron in Atlanta.

That passive image was far removed from the exuberant, talkative, vainglorious 22-year-old who bounded out of Louisville, Ky., and onto the world stage in 1964 with an upset victory over Sonny Liston to become the world champion. The press called him the Louisville Lip. He called himself the Greatest.

Ali also proved to be a shape-shifter — a public figure who kept reinventing his persona.

As a bubbly teenage gold medalist at the 1960 Olympics in Rome, he parroted America’s Cold War line, lecturing a Soviet reporter about the superiority of the United States. But he became a critic of his country and a government target in 1966 with his declaration “I ain’t got nothing against them Vietcong.”

“He lived a lot of lives for a lot of people,” said the comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory. “He was able to tell white folks for us to go to hell.”

But Ali had his hypocrisies, or at least inconsistencies. How could he consider himself a “race man” yet mock the skin color, hair and features of other African-Americans, most notably Joe Frazier, his rival and opponent in three classic matches? Ali called him “the gorilla,” and long afterward Frazier continued to express hurt and bitterness.

If there was a supertitle to Ali’s operatic life, it was this: “I don’t have to be who you want me to be; I’m free to be who I want.” He made that statement the morning after he won his first heavyweight title. It informed every aspect of his life, including the way he boxed.

The traditionalist fight crowd was appalled by his style; he kept his hands too low, the critics said, and instead of allowing punches to “slip” past his head by bobbing and weaving, he leaned back from them.

Eventually his approach prevailed. Over 21 years, he won 56 fights and lost five. His Ali Shuffle may have been pure showboating, but the “rope-a-dope” — in which he rested on the ring’s ropes and let an opponent punch himself out — was the stratagem that won the Rumble in the Jungle against George Foreman in 1974, the fight in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) in which he regained his t His personal life was paradoxical. Ali belonged to a sect that emphasized strong families, a subject on which he lectured, yet he had dalliances as casual as autograph sessions. A brief first marriage to Sonji Roi ended in divorce after she refused to dress and behave as a proper Nation wife. (She died in 2005.) While married to Belinda Boyd, his second wife, Ali traveled openly with Veronica Porche, whom he later married. That marriage, too, ended in divorce.

Ali was politically and socially idiosyncratic as well. After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the television interviewer David Frost asked him if he considered Al Qaeda and the Taliban evil. He replied that terrorism was wrong but that he had to “dodge questions like that” because “I have people who love me.” He said he had “businesses around the country” and an image to consider.

As a spokesman for the Muhammad Ali Center, a museum dedicated to “respect, hope and understanding,” which opened in his hometown, Louisville, in 2005, he was known to interrupt a fund-raising meeting with an ethnic joke. In one he said: “If a black man, a Mexican and a Puerto Rican are sitting in the back of a car, who’s driving? Give up? The po-lice.”

But Ali had generated so much good will by then that there was little he could say or do that would change the public’s perception of him.

“We forgive Muhammad Ali his excesses,” an Ali biographer, Dave Kindred, wrote, “because we see in him the child in us, and if he is foolish or cruel, if he is arrogant, if he is outrageously in love with his reflection, we forgive him because we no more can condemn him than condemn a rainbow for dissolving into the dark. Rainbows are born of thunderstorms, and Muhammad Ali is both.”

Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. was born in Louisville on Jan. 17, 1942, into a family of strivers that included teachers, musicians, and craftsmen. Some of them traced their ancestry to Henry Clay, the 19th-century representative, senator and secretary of state, and his cousin Cassius Marcellus Clay, a noted abolitionist.

Ali’s mother, Odessa, was a cook and a house cleaner, his father a sign painter and a church muralist who blamed discrimination for his failure to become a recognized artist. Violent and often drunk, Clay Sr. filled the heads of Cassius and his younger brother, Rudolph (later Rahman Ali), with the teachings of the 20th-century black separatist Marcus Garvey and a refrain that would become Ali’s — “I am the greatest.”

Beyond his father’s teachings, Ali traced his racial and political identity to the 1955 murder of Emmett Till, a black 14-year-old from Chicago who was believed to have flirted with a white woman on a visit to Mississippi. Clay was about the same age as Till, and the photographs of the brutalized dead youth haunted him, he said.

Cassius started to box at 12, after his new $60 red Schwinn bicycle was stolen off a downtown street. He reported the theft to Joe Martin, a police officer who ran a boxing gym. When Cassius boasted what he would do to the thief when he caught him, Martin suggested that he first learn how to punch properly.

Cassius was quick, dedicated and gifted at publicizing a youth boxing show, “Tomorrow’s Champions,” on local television. He was soon its star.

For all his ambition and willingness to work hard, education — public and segregated — eluded him. The only subjects in which he received satisfactory grades were art and gym, his high school reported years later. Already an amateur boxing champion, he graduated 376th in a class of 391. He was never taught to read properly; years later he confided that he had never read a book, neither the ones on which he collaborated nor even the Quran, although he said he had reread certain passages dozens of times. He memorized his poems and speeches, laboriously printing them out over and over.

From the New York Times

G. Louis Fletcher passed away on Monday evening, 8/20/2018, from complications associated with Parkinson’s Disease. Louis died in his Redlands, CA, home peacefully and surrounded by family.

Lifelong Redlands resident, G. Louis Fletcher was born October 18, 1934, in Redlands Burke Sanitarium in Redlands, California, to Edward T. and Vada J. Fletcher. Louis grew up working in his family-owned Fletcher Planing Mill and Cabinet Shop and helped manage the family-owned orange groves. He attended Kingsbury Elementary School, Redlands Junior High School, and graduated from Redlands High School in 1952 where he played trumpet, was a member of the business staff of the Makio yearbook, and sports editor for the Hobachi student newspaper. As a high school senior, he received the Stanford University Dofflemyer Eagle Scout Scholarship. He surprised everyone by turning down this four-year, full-ride scholarship to Stanford to attend the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, the university he was introduced to by a seventh-grade math teacher who was impressed by Louis' extraordinary math and science aptitude.

Louis graduated from Caltech with a BS in engineering (’56) and an MS in Mechanical engineering (’57). He received the Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship in Industry while in graduate school. While in college and after graduation he worked for the Douglas Aircraft Company in Santa Monica, the Grand Central Rocket Company in Mentone, and for the Hydro Conduit Company in Colton. He also earned a real estate broker license and taught thermodynamics and engineering at the University of Redlands from 1957-58. It was during this time teaching at the University of Redlands that he met his wife, Janet.

In 1966 Louis was hired by the San Bernardino Valley Municipal Water District (MUNI) as their first in-house civil engineer. MUNI had just secured a contract to oversee the design and construction of the East Branch of the California State Water Project (SWP). SWP would become the largest man-made water conveyance system in the USA, now including numerous storage facilities, reservoirs and lakes, miles of canals and pipelines, and five hydroelectric plants. Jeff Crider, a MUNI historian, wrote, “. . . the district hired Louis Fletcher as its chief engineer. [He was] widely described as a brilliant thinker… Fletcher took a strategic approach and set about the task of designing a highly effective water system that would serve the entire San Bernardino Valley.” Louis said that he took the job because “…it just fit what I liked doing. It was probably a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a young engineer.”

In 1980, Louis was appointed General Manager where he remained until his retirement in 2001, compiling 35 years of service with MUNI. He devoted himself to the formulation, design, and administration of a water system that served the valley he loved. Throughout his career he was renowned for creatively simplifying complex ideas, often employing hand-drawn cartoons featuring his own creation, the “Groundwater Fish”. The actions he took in opposing the U.S. Army Corp of Engineer’s (USACE) Mentone Dam location and design are now the stuff of legend. He kicked off the opposition with an organized protest, inviting newspaper and TV news reporters, politicians, and a large Corp of Engineer contingent to an outdoor news conference at the site of the proposed dam. Large weather balloons were raised 250 feet high across 3.5 miles distance (the proposed height and length of the dam, respectively). Years later a USACE engineer recalled, “Louis fought us and fought us but when I saw all those balloons sticking up there I knew I was done.” In addition to several controversial risks, including standing atop California’s San Andreas Fault, the Corp’s design involved a single massive dry dam and provided only flood control. The key element of Louis’ opposition strategy was presenting a new location and a design incorporating a series of levees, water storage, and trails based on a 1928 State of California engineering report. Louis said, “The state had come up with a better plan long before the Corp even got involved.” The battle would end four years later with the scrapping of the Mentone Dam plan and approval to construct the Seven Oaks Dam. Louis was an active member of a variety of organizations including the Tau Beta Pi Association, Caltech Gnomes Honorary Alumni Society, Caltech Alumni Board, the National Society of Professional Engineers, American Society of Civil Engineers (Pipeline Division), the Redlands Chamber of Commerce, Boy Scouts of America, Redlands Highlands Farm Labor Association, and Trinity Church in Redlands. Louis received many awards and recognition including the 1981 J. James R. Croes Medal by the American Society of Civil Engineers for the report titled: Observations of Mortar Lining of Steel Pipelines, which he co-authored with Samual Aroni. He also received the Cal State, San Bernardino Water Resources Institute 2007 Life Time Achievement in Water Resources Award. He is featured in the Cal State, San Bernardino Water Resources Dept. Oral History program archives, as well as in the MUNI 2014 publication, Delivering The Future: 60 years of Vision and Innovation 1954-2014.

Outside of water management, Louis grew oranges in the Redlands area, enjoyed Real Estate investing and development, and loved spending time with his children and grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his parents, Ted and Vada Fletcher, his infant sister, Jeanne Fletcher, and his brother Edward Fletcher, Jr. He is survived by his wife of 59 years, Janet Fletcher, his children Laurie (Brian) Schow of Monument, CO, Cheryl Fletcher of Pasadena, CA, Don Fletcher of San Diego, CA, and his grandchildren Melanie (Kyle) Carter, MD, Brandon Schow, and Nicole Schow. He is also survived by nephew Ed Fletcher III and niece Elizabeth Freel. The surviving family would like to extend a special thanks to the Above & Beyond Homecare Service as well as to Redlands Community Hospital Hospice.

Donald Kroll Donald Kroll, born April 23, 1944, to Elizabeth and Ferdinand Kroll, died April 19, 2006, at Alamitos Belmont Rehabilitation Hospital in Long Beach. Survivors include his wife of 37 years, Sandra; daughter, Katie Kroll; sister, Carol Kerr; and nieces, nephews, an aunt, uncles, and cousins.

Don grew up in Los Angeles, Downey, and Garden Grove, graduated from Rancho Alamitos High School, completed a Bachelor's degree at California State University Long Beach and a Master's at San Diego State University. From 1966 to 1999 he was employed by the Long Beach Unified School District as a teacher aide, teacher, librarian, and library-media specialist at Tincher and Edison Elementary Schools, Stevens Junior High School, and Millikan and Wilson High Schools.

During his career Don was a member of several professional organizations, including the English Council of Long Beach and Long Beach School Librarians Association, both of which he served as president; and the American Federation of Teachers and Teachers Association of Long Beach. He was also active in Friends of the Long Beach Public Library, serving on the Blanche Collins Forum. As a member of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Long Beach (UUCLB), he served on various committees, taught Sunday school, and assisted in many of the programs. With his daughter, he was involved in Indian Princesses at the YMCA for a number of years. 

His enjoyment of music was a recurring theme in Don's life. One of his great joys was leading groups of adults and children in song on his cherished Martin guitar. He spent countless hours listening to his extensive record collection and many evenings in concert halls, enjoying a variety of musical styles, from heavy symphonic music and opera to rock'n'roll and folk. Don took great pleasure in performing in front of a group, and found venues around campfires, at his church and church camp, and in schools. For several years he belonged to his church's choir, participating with them in the Mozart Festival Choir, and he sang with the choir at his church's General Assembly. Don enjoyed other performance opportunities in addition to singing. Many of his friends remember his hilarious performance as "Trudy the Bag Lady," a Lily Tomlin invention. For that, he was billed as "Don Kroll in drag." Don loved spending time outdoors, whether it was in the backyard or on camping trips with family and friends. With his family, he enjoyed extensive U.S. travel including more than one cross-country road trip, as well as travel to Europe, Canada, and Mexico.

He treasured his home and enjoyed handiwork and small repairs, which gave him a sense of satisfaction. He had a strong interest in film and photography. He was a generous person and loved to share whatever he had with other people - whether it was a piece of pie, a Randy Newman CD, or something larger, such as his home or his talent. He was easy-going and mellow, always eager to honor others' wishes rather than impose his own agenda. His kind wit and welcoming smile will be dearly missed by his many friends who remember him as both a gentleman and a very "gentleman."

Don's family requests that donations go to Friends of the Library, 101 Pacific Ave., Long Beach, CA 90802; or to UUCLB: Music Special Fund, 5450 Atherton Street, Long Beach, CA 90815; or to Parkinson's Resource Organization (Donald Kroll Memorial Fund), 74-090 El Paseo, Suite 102, Palm Desert, CA 92260-4135.

Dr. Walker Lee Breland, 85, husband of June Starr Price Breland, passed away on Palm Sunday, March 28, after a courageous 14 year battle with Parkinson's disease.

Walker, a native of Walterboro, SC, began playing music by ear in his elementary school years. Learning to read music came next, where he traveled to Charleston to take piano and organ lessons from Vernon Weston. A graduate of Walterboro High School, he served as drum major and accompanied various choral groups. Walker received a full scholarship to Furman University, where he served as the accompanist for the Furman Singers. After graduating from Furman, he married his high school sweetheart, June Price Breland, and served in the U.S. Army.

Walker pursued his Ph.D. in sacred music from Indiana University. While in graduate school, he served as organist of North Christian Church in Columbus, Indiana. Walker served as a professor of music at Columbia College, Columbia, SC from 1965-1972. Each summer, he led educational tours for his students all throughout Europe. While living in Columbia, Walker served as the organist of Cayce UMC and Trenholm Road UMC.

In 1972, Walker moved to Tennessee to work as a professor of music at the University of TN at Chattanooga. He led the Madrigal Singers and taught one of his favorites, a Survey of Jazz, as well as organ instruction. Walker chaired various committees including the Academic Affairs and Athletic Committees. He retired from UTC in 2004 after serving 32 years. Walker was a popular professor amongst the student body---it would not be unusual for former students to greet him while out and about in Chattanooga with his family, and remark that "they love jazz or classical music" because of his course at UTC.

While in Chattanooga, Walker served as the organist for First Centenary UMC, for 25 years. Upon retirement, he was named Organist Emeritus. Walker was encouraged to record a CD of his most requested organ pieces. One, in particular, the Fifth Organ Symphony in F, Op 42 #1, by Charles-Marie Widor, was always played on Easter services annually. This same recording was featured in his youngest granddaughter's wedding recessional when he was not able to play due to his Parkinson's disease. He was a gifted musician, who not only played the notes proficiently but allowed the Holy Spirit to infill his work, which he played to the glory of God. One of the honors of his life was to serve as the President of the Riverbend Festival in Chattanooga, in its early years of inception. Walker was proud of the offerings of all genres of music to the wider Chattanooga community and the many lasting friendships he made along the way.

Walker and June were fortunate to travel the world together before his Parkinson's diagnosis and loved spending time with their four grandchildren.

He is survived by his wife of 61 years, June of Charleston SC; daughters: Beth Breland Snyder (Greg) of Johns Island, SC and Melanie Breland Hembree (Wade) of Milton, Ga; four grandchildren: Rachel Snyder Miller (Luke) of Knoxville, TN, Sarah Snyder Brown (Cary) of Myrtle Beach, SC, and Walker and Will Hembree of Milton, GA; one great-granddaughter, Elizabeth Frances Miller; and his sister, Irene Stokes (Don) of Dunwoody, GA. Additionally, Walker is survived by his extended family, sister-in-law, Judy Rembert Price of Simpsonville, SC; nieces and nephew, Paige Price McCluskey (Chris) of Anderson, SC, Rachael Price Garcia (Charles) of Simpsonville, SC and Becky and Jimmy Halford, of Atlanta, GA.

Walker was predeceased by his parents, Julius Earl Breland and Reba Walker Breland, of Walterboro, SC.