August 16, 2007

OBITUARIES

Jane Morgan

Jane Moore Morgan died at her home in the Vale community, just south of Yellow Springs, among family and friends on Wednesday, Aug. 15, eight weeks after her 89th birthday. She was born in New Rochelle, N.Y., June 16, 1918, to Frederic and Mary Moore.  

As a young girl, Jane lived with her family in Japan, where her father was working as an advisor to the Japanese government. She experienced the great Kanto earthquake of 1923, in which 140,000 lives were lost. Her family then moved to Washington, D.C., where her father worked as advisor to the Japanese ambassador until the time of Pearl Harbor. 

From an early age, Jane showed an independent streak and a strong social conscience. Brought up Episcopalian, she attended the Cathedral School in Washington D.C., where one of her subjects of study was the Bible. From this she decided it was inconsistent to be a Christian and kill people. After reading about Quakers and pacifism, she started attending Friends Meeting and felt that was where she belonged. She often remarked that the slogan on a Washington newspaper’s masthead “If you want peace, prepare for war” had never made sense to her. She believed that if we want peace, we should be preparing for peace.

On one occasion, when the Japanese ambassador came to dinner, her father felt obliged to tell him that Jane, age 17 at the time, might not address him using his title, and might also use the opportunity to bring up her disagreement with Japan’s invasion of China.  

Jane graduated from Antioch College and married Griscom Morgan, son of Arthur E. and Lucy Morgan. After the birth of their first child, they moved to 45 acres of land near Yellow Springs, and invited other families to join them in creating the Vale intentional community. 

At age 35 she contracted polio. Jane required an iron lung for three months and a rocking bed for two. Her doctor told her she would never walk again. By then she had young children to care for. With great determination and the help of a fine therapist, she progressed from wheelchair to full leg braces and finally learned to walk again. At the height of her recovery she was able to walk the one half mile length of the Vale lane. However, her arms remained too weak to protect her from several damaging falls over the years.

With Billie Eastman and Peggy Champney, Jane helped start the Vale School, where she taught for 30 years. She also served as executive director of Community Service, Inc., for 25 years. During those years, she read many books and publications in search of speakers for her annual conference and insightful articles to republish in the organization’s newsletter. She had a lifelong interest in history and in the social, spiritual and mental principles that can make our lives and world better. The constructive use of prayer was always very important to her.

Jane learned about simple nutritious ways to prepare food, like whole wheat bread, from her mother-in-law, Lucy Morgan. She maintained this way of cooking and eating for the rest of her life. She loved to garden, but after her bout with polio, her children and other young people had to do the physical work for her. She used that opportunity to instill her knowledge and love of gardening in many young people. She had a motto: “Man cannot live by vegetables alone,” so she always planted plenty of flowers. She always favored a tasteful, simple, and frugal lifestyle, which also fit with Quaker tradition.

Jane was blessed by, and in turn blessed, a long succession of fine helpers and caregivers over the years.

She was preceded in death by her parents; her husband, Griscom Morgan; her brothers, David and John Moore; and her cousin, Harry Browning Moore.

She is survived by her children, John Morgan of Beallsville, Faith Morgan and her husband, Pat Murphy, of Yellow Springs, and former foster son Philip Letson of Arizona; her sister, Margaret Detwiler of Roswell, N.M.; her niece, Bonnie Detwiler of Santa Fe, N.M., and her nephew, Charlie Moore and his wife, Pauline, of Palo Alto, Calif.

Jane Morgan leaves us her legacy of a lifelong commitment to peace, love, community service, wholesome nutrition, organic gardening and earth stewardship. The Vale intentional community, started by Jane and Griscom, continues to thrive. Community Service, Inc., now called The Community Solution, under the leadership of Jane’s son-in-law Pat Murphy, continues her legacy, now focusing on solutions to the twin threats of climate change and peak oil.

A memorial service will be held in September, the date to be announced. Condolences may be sent to Faith Morgan at: faithmorgan@communitysolution.org and John Morgan at: jmrrpress@sbcglobal.net. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to help purchase fruit trees for a proposed Jane and Griscom Morgan Memorial Orchard, or to Community Service, Inc., P.O. Box 243, Yellow Springs, Ohio.  

Dr. Louis Schwab

Louis Schwab, M.D., died on Wednesday, Aug. 8, at Greene Memorial Hospital, Xenia, Ohio, in the manner in which he lived his life, with gentle dignity. In addition to exercising numerous leadership positions during his career, Dr. Schwab was especially known for his ability to listen to young patients and in particular to their mothers, which he said was often the key to his success at diagnosis.

Louis Schwab was born at Good Samaritan Hospital in Cincinnati on Aug. 26, 1919, to Judge Nelson and Marie Carlile Schwab. Dr. Schwab was molded as a child through a love of the wild as set by the examples of his father and grandfather, Louis Schwab, M.D., for whom he was named. The first Dr. Schwab, who served as mayor of Cincinnati from 1910–11, had the Schwab family cottage built on Crooked Lake, near Alanson, Mich., in 1901. The second Dr. Schwab upheld the family tradition of heading north with his children in the summer to escape the Cincinnati heat. Along the way, in the practice of the Good Samaritan, he would routinely stop to help stranded motorists, said his son John Schwab.

Dr. Schwab graduated from Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati in 1937. Inspired by his grandfather, he was drawn to study medicine and graduated from Princeton University in 1941 before enrolling at Harvard Medical School, from where he graduated in 1944. During his residency in Boston, Dr. Schwab participated in early breakthrough studies of bacterial resistance and the use of penicillin. In later years he helped pioneer developments in artificial heart valves, a cardioscope for direct inspection of the interior of the intact, beating heart, among many other medical devices. He was granted a U.S. patent in 1995 for an apparatus and method to better administer tests for tuberculosis.

Dr. Schwab served as a captain in the U.S. Army Medical Corps during World War II. Like so many of his generation, he had grown disillusioned with war as a means to resolve conflict and wanted to help lay the foundation for perpetual peace. For this reason, Dr. Schwab championed the Sister Cities program in the late 1940s, particularly between Cincinnati and Munich. Throughout his life, Dr. Schwab offered ideas concerning world peace and other topics to those at the highest levels of government.

During the 1950s and 1960s, Dr. Schwab developed a successful pediatrics practice in Cincinnati, served as professor of pediatrics at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, president of the medical and dental staff of the Children’s Hospital in Cincinnati, overseeing nearly 200 doctors, and was instrumental in forming the first Cystic Fibrosis Clinic at Cincinnati Children’s, serving as its director. In 1972, Dr. Schwab became medical director of North Shore Children’s Hospital in Salem, Mass., and was appointed assistant clinical professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. In 1974, he returned to Ohio to serve as medical director of the Children’s Hospital in Dayton, where he helped establish ongoing investigations into cystic fibrosis. He also helped initiate a residency program in pediatrics for the Wright State University School of Medicine.

In 1984, Dr. Schwab served as representative from the American Academy of Pediatrics to the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Hospitals. During this period to the end of his career he began to think extensively on the need for healthcare reform in the U.S., calling for a “national, primary-care oriented, not-for-profit, office based, prevention-focused health care system.” In 1985, Dr. Schwab returned to his first love, practicing primary care pediatrics, in Xenia until his retirement in 1998.

He was preceded in death by his parents; his sister, Dorothy Schwab Brantley; his nephew, Thomas Brantley Jr.; his brother, Nelson Schwab Jr.; and by his first wife, Anne Keville Schwab, with whom he had three surviving sons, Louis Schwab III of Cincinnati, John Keville Schwab of Dayton and William Carlile Schwab of Denver.

He is also survived by his wife, Nancy Schwab, of Yellow Springs, and their sons, Martin Schwab of Honolulu, and Philip Potamitis and his children, Philip Potamitis Jr., and Sophia Potamitis of Las Vegas; his grandsons, John Louis Schwab, and Benjamin William Schwab, both of Los Angeles, and Julian Florent Mathias Schwab of Denver; his nephews, Michael Brantley of Corvallis, Ore., David Brantley and Stephen Brantley of Vancouver, Wash., Matthew Brantley of Seattle, Nelson Schwab III of Charlotte, N.C. and Richard Schwab of Cincinnati.

A memorial concert in honor of Dr. Schwab is being planned for February 2008 as part of the Cathedral Concert Series of St. Mary’s Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption in Covington, Ky., exact date to be announced. The special memorial concert will be open to the public and will feature choral and organ music played on the historic 1859 Mathias Schwab organ, built by the great grandfather of Dr. Schwab. Donations are requested to be sent to “Schwab Organ Fund” for the upkeep and restoration of this family and historic area treasure at St. Mary’s Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption, 1140 Madison Avenue, Covington, Ky. 41011.

Donna Hanna

Donna Rachel (Finney) Hanna died Friday, Aug. 10, at the Greenwood Manor in Xenia. She was 85.

She was born on Aug. 24, 1921, in Cedarville, Ohio, the daughter of Elkana E. and Donna B. (Prose) Finney.

Donna was reared and educated in Cedarville and was a graduate of Cedarville High School. She was retired from General Motors Corporation, where she worked as an accounts payable clerk in Dayton. She was a member of the Cedarville United Presbyterian Church, where she had served as a Sunday School teacher and choir member for over 50 years, and was also active as a deacon, elder and as a clerk of session. She was also a 50-year plus member of the Cedarville Chapter & Aldora Chapter Order of the Eastern Star, where she served three terms as worthy matron and many years as treasurer, and was active with the Cedarville Senior Citizens Center.

She was preceded in death by her parents; by her husband, J. Harold Hanna; by two sisters, Helen Troutman and Frances Slifer; and by four brothers, Malcom, John, Joseph and Howard Finney.

She is survived by one sister, Nancy Sparrow of Lititz, Pa.; two sisters-in-law, Mary Finney of Kenton, Ohio and Kathleen Finney of Orrville, Ohio; one stepdaughter and son-in-law, Carol and Eddie Moore of Yellow Springs; two stepsons and daughters-in-law, James and Sue (Bell) Hanna of Wilmington, Ohio and John and Becky (Krieger) Hanna of Cedarville; seven grandchildren; four great-grandchildren; 11 nieces and nephews and numerous grand nieces and nephews.

The Order of the Eastern Star provided Eastern Star rituals with the funeral services on Aug. 14, followed by interment at North Cemetery.

The family requests memorial contributions be made to Cedarville United Presbyterian church Memorial Fund, P.O. Box 52, Cedarville, Ohio 45314 or Hospice of Dayton, 324 Wilmington Avenue, Dayton, Ohio 45420.