Necrology, 2006

1936-2007

Eugene Numa Lane (1936-2007) was salutatorian of his Princeton class (1958). He received an M.A. from Yale in 1960 and his Ph.D. two years later. After a year at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens, he taught at the University of Virginia (1962-6), then the University of Missouri, Columbia, where he rose from associate to full professor, serving a term as chair and another as graduate director. In teaching and scholarship Greek was his preferred language and he taught it at all levels in classes ranging from small seminars to auditorium-sized mythology classes. He returned to the Athens to teach at the American School in the summer of 1992 and after retiring in 2000 he served on the School's Managing Committee. His scholarship enlarged our understanding of Greek cults in Rome by means of his superb editing of the four-volume Corpus monumentorum religionis dei Menis (Leiden: Brill, 1971-8) and two of the three volumes of Corpus cultus Iovis Sabazii (Leiden: Brill, 1983-9), permanent testimony to the breadth and precision of his scholarship. His sourcebook, Paganism and Christianity, 100-425 C.E. (edited with Ramsay MacMullen) (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), is invaluable on its subject. His piety, demonstrated by his editing Cybele, Attis, and related cults: essays in memory of M. J. Vermaseren (Leiden: Brill, 1996), inspired similar impulses in his students, resulting in his own Festschrift edited by Cathy Callaway (Stoa Consortium, 2002). He died of complications of Parkinson's Disease on New Year's Day 2007.

— Ward Briggs

1916-2006

Theodore J. Tracy, S.J. (1916-2006) was born in Chicago where he lived throughout his active career. His life was dominated by his devotion to the Society of Jesus and his interest in the ancient world. He was educated at Loyola Academy and joined the Society in 1939, the year after graduating from Loyola University of Chicago. In 1942 he earned an M.A. in classics and philosophy from Loyola and began his teaching career at his alma mater, Loyola Academy (1943-7). He turned then to theology and was ordained in 1950 and received an S.T.L. from Bellarmine School of Theology (1951). He turned back to classics and enrolled at Princeton, where he received an M.A. (1954) and, at the age of 46, a Ph.D. (1962), writing a dissertation on the physiological theory and the theory of the mean in Plato and Aristotle under Whitney Oates. In the meantime, he served one year as an instructor at Xavier University in Cincinnati (1955-6) before returning to Loyola in Chicago where he became associate professor (1956-70) and chair of the department (1960-7). In 1970 he became associate professor at the new University of Illinois at Chicago Circle (1970-81), serving one year as chair (1974-5) while serving on the Board of Trustees of Loyola for more than a decade. In this period he served as first vice-president of CAMWS (1977-8). His publications were few, but not slight was his reputation as a nearly ideal colleague and teacher. A student of yoga, he maintained the notion of a mind-spirit balance that matched the balance of the love of antiquity and devotion to his faith. He died on October 2, 2006.

— Ward Briggs

1930-2006

Henry Lloyd Stow graduated from the University of Chicago in 1930 and was a Ryerson Fellow at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (1932-3), where he met and fell in love with a fellow student, Hester Harrington. After completing his Ph.D. at Chicago in 1936, he married Harrington and took a position with the University of Oklahoma. Fifteen years later, while chair of the Oklahoma department Stow accepted the chairmanship of the department at Vanderbilt in 1952. He returned to the American School three times as a teacher. He remained chair at Vanderbilt until 1976, when he retired. He was so distinguished as a teacher that he won Vanderbilt's Sarratt Cup for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching and continued teaching after retirement by leading alumni trips to Greece and the Mediterranean. He died August 26, 2006, at the age of 97.

— Ward Briggs

Stuart L. Wheeler, a lifelong Virginian, received his undergraduate education at the College of William and Mary, his master's from Vanderbilt. He attended Johns Hopkins University for two years of graduate study. Following two years of high-school teaching in York County, Virginia, he was appointed to the faculty of the University of Richmond in 1967 and ultimately chaired the Department of Classical Studies and was a president of the Virginia Classical Association. Wheeler was noted among students for his Bill Cosby sweaters, the fervency of his political views, his dry humor, rollicking trips with students to Greece, and in class a particular stress on correct Latin pronunciation. In the words of a colleague, Wheeler believed that "environments need to be nurtured to foster culture." Wheeler expressed this in many ways, from his furnishing a comfortable and attractive classics library to serving on Richmond's Commission of Architectural Review (1972-82) to rescuing (as program director) the university's Urban Practice and Policy Program to running his own antiques shop, Distinctive Consignments, Ltd. In the 1970s, he saved the mummy of Ti Ameny Net from destruction and stored it in the trunk of his car for a year until it could go on permanent display in university's Ancient World Gallery. He died on August 25, 2006, at the age of 68 of lung cancer.

— Ward Briggs

Additional Obituary

Charles Mathews Binnicker Jr., 77, died Saturday, July 29, 2006.

He was born in Jacksonville, Fl., on April 29, 1929. He was preceded in death by his parents Charles Mathews Binnicker Sr. and Vivian Futch Binnicker, and his sister, Barbara Binnicker Gordon.

He is survived by his wife of 33 years, Margaret Duncan Binnicker; his nieces, Susan Darby (Stephen Bentley) Gordon, of Los Angeles, Sarah Mathews (James Kicidis), of Charlotte, N.C., Katherine Gordon (Thomas) Hartung, of Clemmons Gordon, N.C., and Ann Gordon (Patrick ) McCrory, of Charlotte; his greatniece, Catherine Morrow (Matthew) Harvey, of Charlotte; and his greatnephew, William Gordon Bentley, of Los Angeles.

He graduated from Leon High School in Tallahassee and attended the University of Florida before transferring to and graduating from the University of the South in Sewanee. He earned a master's degree from Florida State University and a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina.

He attended Army Language School in Monterey, Ca., and served in the U.S. Air Force. He taught at the University of the South for more than 40 years and served his university as chairman of the department of classical languages, dean of men, marshall of the university, faculty trustee, secretary to the board of trustees, secretary of the University Corp., member and secretary of its Phi Beta Kappa chapter, member and adviser to the Sigma Alpha Epsilon chapter and member and masker of the Red Ribbon Society.

Beyond Sewanee, he was a visiting scholar in 1981 at the American Academy of Rome and served two terms as president of the Tennessee Classical Association.

1932-2006

Harry Carraci Rutledge (1932-2006) was born in Chillicothe, Ohio. All of his higher education occurred at Ohio State, where he received a B.Sc.Ed. (1954), M.A. (1957), and Ph.D. (1960). His first job was as assistant professor of classics at the University of Georgia, where he rose to associate professor (1960-9) and head of the Romance Languages Department (1962-9). Here he began to publish in his chosen field of interest, the classical tradition in the twentieth century with "T.S. Eliot and Virgil" in Vergilius (1966). He moved to Knoxville in 1969 as Professor of Classics at the University of Tennessee (1969-96), where he chaired the department for more than two decades (1968-91). Many of us remember with special fondness the papers first introduced in sessions at CAMWS meetings that were collected in The Guernica Bull: Studies in the Classical Tradition in the Twentieth Century (1989). Papers like "Classical Imagery in Henry James's Golden Bowl" (1977) and "Dido in Modern Literature" (1981) are among his best. Harry is perhaps best remembered for his great service to classical organizations. He was president of three of the largest: the Vergilian Society of America (1977-9), the American Classical League (1990-4) and our own CAMWS (1979-80). He was also president of the Southern Comparative Literature Association (1978-9) and secretary to the advisory council of the American Academy in Rome (1971-5). A rare grace and a generous soul in a loving friend to the world of classics, Harry died on April 15, 2006.

— Ward Briggs

1922-2006

Bernard Goldman (1922-2006) served his alma mater, Wayne State University, from which he graduated in 1947, for over forty years, teaching a wide variety of courses in Art History. His lifelong specialty was the subject of his last major publication, The Discovery of Dura-Europas (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1979). He used his extensive knowledge of the art of Central and Western Asia for publications aimed both at scholars (The Sacred Portal: A Primary Symbol in Ancient Judaic Art [Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1966]) and for students (The Ancient Arts of Western and Central Asia[Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1991] and Reading and Writing in the Arts: A Handbook [Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1972]). He also served as a director of the Wayne State University Press for a decade. He died on March 22, 2006, at the age of 83.

— Ward Briggs

BROWN, Jeffrey A. 43, of Springfield passed away at 4:40 a.m. Sunday, March 19, 2006 in his residence. He was born April 30, 1962 in Springfield, Ohio, the son of Thomas A. and Joyce M. (Lonsway) Brown. Survivors in addition to his parents of Springfield include, one sister, Colleen M. Brown, Indianapolis, Indiana, two brothers and sisters-in-law, David A. and Lisa K. Brown, Steven M. and Jill K. Brown all of Springfield, Ohio; three nieces and one nephew, Megan, Kamryn, Taylor and Ryan, all of Springfield, Ohio; maternal grandmother, Jane F. Lonsway of Springfield; several aunts, uncles, cousins, and very special friends, Doug and Lisa Bennett and family, Maineville, Ohio, Nevin and Shirley Wagner and family, Oakwood, Ohio, and Dianna Myers, Spring Valley, Ohio. Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 10 a.m. Wednesday in St. Raphael Church. Burial will be in Ferncliff Cemetery. Contributions in his memory may be made to the American Classical League, Miami University, 422 Wells Mill Drive, Oxford, Ohio 45056, and Hospice of Dayton, 324 Wilmington Avenue, Dayton, Ohio 45420. CONROY FUNERAL HOME is serving the family.

1947-2006

Deborah June Mason was not known primarily as one who taught Latin; according to her students, she "taught life"; Latin was the means by which she did so. Her own life began on November 15, 1947, in Campbell County, Virginia. After graduating from Randolph-Macon Women's College in history, she began her 22-year career at Altavista High School in Altavista, Virginia teaching history, but when the Latin teacher was felled by a heart attack, she took over his classes. A resolution from the Virginia House of Delegates notes that she always encouraged her students "to contribute to their community and aspire to their full academic potential." Unmarried and with no children of her own, she called her students her "babies," and for ten summers took them to Italy to see and touch the monuments that made their classwork come to vivid life. She also took her students to different parts of America doing relief work for Habitat for Humanity, DAWN, American Red Cross Tsunami Relief, and in the last year of her life she led her students in volunteering for the Katrina Relief Program. Small wonder that she was named Campbell County Teacher of the Year in 1994 and the Central Virginia Governor's School Outstanding Educator in 1995. Small wonder that on February 11, 2006, her death was grieved by her students as sorely as they also joyously celebrated her life.

— Ward Briggs