January 19, 2006

OBITUARIES

Helen Lucille McCown

Helen Lucille (Lanier) McCown died gently, surrounded by family, at her daughter’s home on Wednesday, Jan. 4. She was 92.

She was born Jan. 6, 1913, in Seattle, the daughter of Ernest and Grace (Woody) Lanier. Her father was a partner with the Inland Printing Company, which soon purchased the evening paper in Walla Walla, where the family relocated. Helen and her younger sister, Maxine, attended St. Paul’s School for Girls and then Walla Walla High School, where Helen earned four varsity letters in both basketball and tennis. Helen attended Whitman College and excelled in political science and Greek.

Dr. Penrose, the president of Whitman, was blind and students could sign up during the year to accompany him to lunch. When Helen met with him during her senior year, he was concerned to discover that she was considering attending law school. He made it clear that he thought women had no place in professions like the law and that she should choose something more suitable. After that discussion, she decided to attend law school. Fortunately, her advisor was supportive and recommended her to the Duke University School of Law, which had begun accepting women the previous year. During her years at Duke, she sent Penrose copies of all her grade reports, as well as articles about her and her publications. She was one of three women who graduated in the Class of 1937, which also included Harland Leathers of the U.S. Department of Justice and President Richard Nixon. But most memorable to her was class president Hale McCown, who beat Nixon by six votes.

On July 15, 1938, Helen married Hale McCown in the gardens of her family’s home. They made their home in Beatrice, Neb., where Hale’s father, Ross McCown, was the local Presbyterian minister. During World War II, Hale served as an officer on a naval aircraft carrier in the Pacific, and returned to private legal practice in 1945. As Hale became active in the Nebraska and American Bar Associations and the American Law Institute, Helen served as an elegant, witty companion and a gracious hostess. Helen was also active on the Beatrice School Board while her three children, Bob, Bill and Lynn, were in school. In 1954, her children came down with polio and Bob was left a quadriplegic. Rejecting his doctor’s recommendation to institutionalize Bob, she focused her prodigious energies on his rehabilitation.

In 1965, with all of her children out of college, her husband was appointed to the Nebraska Supreme Court and Helen began a new life in Lincoln. She was one of the founding members of the Nebraska Art Association and its foundation and an officer and member of the board of trustees of the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery.

She and her husband loved to travel and visited over 100 countries together. On a trip to Norway, she discovered a school of handweaving and got in touch with the Lincoln Weaver’s Guild upon her return. She became an accomplished weaver, teaching at the University of Nebraska and maintaining a private clientele for her original designs.

She was preceded, as she would put it, by pretty much everyone, including her parents; her sister, Maxine Gibbons; two grandchildren, Heather Young and Cecily Kenton; a son, Bob McCown; and her beloved husband of 67 years, Hale “Mac” McCown.

She is survived by her children, Bill and Pauline McCown and Lynn McCown and her partner Saul Young; her daughter-in-law, Ranna Christenson; grandchildren and their spouses, Jocelyn and Jim Hardman, Hadley and Kevin Messner, Hillary McCown and Rick Donner, Andrew McCown and Margot Roth, and Alex McCown; and great-grandchildren, Zeke and Jacob Hardman, Jules and Katharine Harris, Isabelle Messner and Ruby Helen Donner.

Saul Young

Saul Young died suddenly on Wednesday, Jan. 11, after a short bout with cancer. He was 64.

Saul was known throughout the community for his love of his family and of Yellow Springs and his devotion to learning.

Born in Detroit on March 14, 1941, Saul moved with his parents to Texas early in his life. He lived in the Houston area until graduating from Spring Branch High School in 1958. He attended the University of Texas, receiving his bachelor’s degree in 1962. He then joined the Air Force, where he served for 20 years, retiring with a rank of lieutenant colonel. He served at many different postings throughout the U.S. and one tour of Vietnam. During his service with the Air Force, he received his master of science degree from the University of Wisconsin in 1969 and his doctorate from Stanford University in 1975.

Saul came to Yellow Springs in the 1970s to teach at the Air Force Institute of Technology at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Upon retiring from the Air Force in 1981, he and his family moved to Hilo, Hawaii, where Saul had accepted a position with the University of Hawaii. Despite its tremendous beauty and tropical climate, Hawaii was not able to overcome the family’s desire to return to Yellow Springs. It had become their home.

Saul returned to Yellow Springs and joined the University of Dayton faculty in 1983. He retired in 2001 but continued to publish research and teach in the Master of Business Administration program. Even upon retirement, Saul’s love of learning kept him in the classroom, co-teaching a course at UD with his friend Joe Castellano.

While at UD, Saul was a founding member of the department now known as management information systems, operations management and decision sciences, established in 1983. He also helped establish the operations management major and served as director of the Center for Advanced Manufacturing. In addition, Saul was a seminar leader and consultant for the Management Development Center, assistant director of the honors program in its formative years and UD’s representative to the Advanced Integrated Manufacturing Center, an engineering partnership with Sinclair Community College.

Saul served the community in a number of positions, including as president and a member of Village Council from 1983 to 1987. He also served as president of the Community Council; trustee with the Yellow Springs Community Foundation; president of the Lion’s Club; a board member of Anthrotech, Inc.; member of the Yellow Springs Men’s Group; and as a volunteer driver for the Senior Center. He was the owner of the Yellow Springs Bike Shop from 1979 to ’82.

Saul’s service to the community and love of learning brought him to know people throughout the community and afar. One of Saul’s most cherished group of friends were the Carmelite Sisters in Hudson, Wisc. Saul often visited the Sisters, always learning from them and trying to find peace in their contemplative life.

His greatest role came later in life as “Buppa,” a name given to him by his oldest grandchild, Zeke Hardman, who as a toddler was unable to pronounce Grandpa, instead saying Buppa. The name was not only known within his family, and Saul was also known to an entire generation of children in Yellow Springs as Buppa.

Saul was preceded in death by two daughters, Heather Young and Cecily Kenton, in 1984 and 1986, respectively.

He is survived by his wife, Lynn McCown, with whom he found great love and joy; his sons and daughters-in-law, Tim and Pam Young and Todd and Laura Young; his daughters and sons-in-law, Jocelyn and Jim Hardman and Hadley and Kevin Messner; brother and sister-in-law, Jerry and Kersten Young; sister and brother-in-law, Marianne and Brice Mantel; and grandchildren, Zeke, Julian, Katharine, Jacob, Hunter, Chance and Isabelle.

Services were held Sunday, Jan. 14, at the First Presbyterian Church. Per his request, his body was cremated, and his ashes will be spread over Pelee Island at a later date.

Contributions may be made to the Saul Young Memorial Fund of Yellow Springs Soccer, Inc., c/o Emily Fine, treasurer, 115 West Whiteman Street.

David Arthur Rock

David Arthur Rock died at his home in Troy, Maine, on Saturday, Dec. 31. He was 74.

Dave was the only son of Esther Chapman Rock and Clayton F. Rock of Topsfield, Mass. Dave graduated from Governor Dummer Academy in 1948. He earned a BS from Antioch College in 1953 and a master’s in forestry at Yale in 1955.

His forestry career began in South Strafford, Vt., with the New England Forestry Foundation. At Berea College in Kentucky, he managed a 6,000-acre working forest and taught farm forestry. In 1960 he worked for a year in New Hampshire as assistant state research forester, then joined the U.S. Forest Service, working in the Warm Springs Ranger District of the George Washington National Forest in Virginia and in Upper Darby, Pa.

In 1964 he returned to Antioch to serve as associate director of the Glen Helen Nature Preserve, instructor and then associate professor in biology. He taught conservation, land use and fly fishing. He also led two three-month-long camping trips, called Conservation Caravans, during which students studied land-use patterns and problems throughout the western United States. He also led hundreds of field trips and night “tree-feeling” walks and worked with the Yellow Springs High School School Forest program. He served on the Village Planning Commission.

In 1973 Dave and his family moved to Troy, Maine, where he again worked for the New England Forestry Foundation. Soon after he became an adjunct instructor of forestry topics at Unity College, where he worked until 2003. In 1984 he became a private consulting forester, serving hundreds of woodlot owners in central Maine until complications resulting from a prostatectomy caused him to retire in 2004.

He was a member of the Maine Association of Consulting Foresters and earned his 50-year pin as a member of the Society of American Foresters in 2005. He served as a director for the Waldo County Soil and Water Conservation District.

He is survived by his wife of 37 years, Judy Goodell Rock; their children, Jennifer of North Wales, U.K., and Timothy K. and Kristin Buccelata Rock of New York City.

There was no ceremony, at Dave’s request. An informal gathering to celebrate Dave’s life is being planned for sap season.

Memorial donations may be made to the New England Forestry Foundation, P.O. Box 1099, 283 Old Dunstable Road, Groton, MA, 01450-3099; Glen Helen Association, 405 Corry Street, Yellow Springs; Berea College, College Forest, Public Relations, College P.O. Box 2316, Berea, KY, 40403; or the Scholarship Program of Unity College, Development Office, 90 Quaker Hill Road, Unity, ME 04988.

John T. Geis Jr.

John T. Geis Jr. of Xenia died Sunday, Jan. 15, at the Cleveland Clinic. He was 50.

He was born Jan. 20, 1955, in Springfield, the son of John and Nellie (Toms) Geis. He served four years in the U.S. Navy, with a tour in Italy. He was employed at the General Motors Truck and Bus Plant in Moraine. He was an avid fisherman and loved the outdoors.

John was a loving and devoted husband and father and a remarkable and caring son and brother.

In addition to his parents, he is survived by his loving wife, Kim (Budenthal); son, John “J.T.” Geis III; three sisters and brothers-in-law, Jane and Tom Blessing of Xenia, Jean and Bob Brookey of Fairborn, and Claudia and Terry Duncan of Yellow Springs; and many nieces and nephews.

Visitation will be held Thursday, Jan. 19, 5–8 p.m., in the Jackson Lytle Williams Funeral Home in Yellow Springs. Services will be held in the funeral home on Friday, Jan. 20, 10 a.m. Burial will follow in St. Paul’s Cemetery.