Douglas, John Brenton (11/23/1939–01/24/1995).

John Douglas of Omaha, Nebraska spent a year at Grinnell College before transferring to Omaha University (n/k/a the University of Nebraska at Omaha), where he received a B.A. in English in 1961. John then joined his father in the family’s Omaha printing business that was interrupted in 1965 by service in the U.S. Air Force.

John was a long-time member of Dundee Presbyterian Church in his home town and was on its Board of Deacons. He also was a member of two Masonic organizations: Shriners International and the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry.

At age 55, John died of cancer. He was survived by his wife, Emily “Ami” Cotton Douglas, daughters Emily “Mimi” Douglas (now True) and Megan Douglas, brother Donald Douglas, who died last year, and other relatives.

Dollarhide, Celia Trumbull Porter (January 4, 1940–December 6, 2012)

Celia Porter from Arlington, Virginia was a history major who was graduated with us in June 1961. She was active in the College’s International Relations Club and served as its Vice President (1958-59) and its U.N. Representative (1959-60). She was a member of the Latin American Steering Committee, the Young Republicans, Uncle Sam’s Club, which provided social services in the town, and the Pre-Law Club. She lived in James, Loose and Read Halls, and her last two years was a member of Read’s governing body (Baffleboard).

Immediately after our graduation she moved to Chicago where for the next five years she was a Correspondent in the Sales Department of Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., a literary and text book publisher.

In 1966 Celia began what turned out to be a 34-year career in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. For the first six years she was a claims examiner at the Chicago Field Office. After moving to Washington,

D.C. in 1972, she held various management positions within the Department’s Veterans Benefits Administration, including Chief of the Program Administration Division and later Deputy Director of the Education Service. In 1994, she was promoted to the Senior Executive Service and appointed Director of Education Services, a position she held until her retirement in early 2001. (The above photograph of Celia is from her VA retirement ceremony.)

Celia was a strong believer in the power of individual empowerment and a major proponent of enhanced education benefits for veterans, including new legislation to further that goal. Her career was devoted to three different GI Bill programs, affecting hundreds of thousands of veterans. Throughout her career, Celia received numerous awards and professional recognition for her advocacy and leadership on behalf of veterans and their survivors, including the Department of Veterans Affairs Distinguished Career Award and the Department of Labor’s Sonny Montgomery Award for significant contributions in support of veterans. She was the first recipient of the Bill Pearson Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award, named for the Veterans Benefits Administration’s Deputy Under Secretary.

While the Director of the VA’s Education Service, Celia testified on at least three occasions before the Subcommittee on Benefits of the House of Representatives’ Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, and upon her retirement, Congressman William H. Smith, then Chairman of the Committee, entered a statement about her in the Congressional Record. It said her “leadership in setting policy, working with Congress, and ensuring that education benefits are paid has been felt by the hundreds of thousands of veterans and their survivors who received an education under one of the three GI Bills during her tenure.” The Congressman concluded by commending her for “her core belief–that veterans could achieve so much more with an education” and for meeting “the highest standards to which civil servants can aspire.”

Celia’s interest in the issues affecting our veterans may have been triggered by having been born at the

U.S. Army’s Fort Riley in Kansas as the daughter of Margaret Trumbull Porter and Robert William Porter, Jr. , a West Pont graduate and Army officer who became a distinguished four-star General. Celia’s high school years were spent as an “Army Brat” following her Father’s Army postings in Arlington, Virginia, Fort Knox, Kentucky and Frankfurt, Germany. Our classmate Lois Christopherson fondly recalls visiting Celia during a College break and going on a tour of the Pentagon led by General Porter.

In 1980, Celia married Charles Lewis (“Lew”) Dollarhide, a 1921 native of Oklahoma, an Army Air Forces fighter pilot in World War II and a practicing lawyer in that state until 1959. That year he joined the U.S.

Veterans Administration as a claims examiner and adjudicator in Oklahoma and later Wisconsin. In 1974 he moved to the Washington, D.C. area to become the Deputy Director of the VA’s Education and Rehabilitation Service, where he and Celia met. From 1980 to 1986, he served as the Director of the VA’s Education Service. Lew died in 1993.

After her retirement from the VA in early 2001, Celia continued living in Alexandria, Virginia near Mount Vernon and on land once owned by George Washington. She

spent a lot of time, however, managing her Father’s 140-acre tree farm–the Middle River Farm–100 miles away in Madison County, Virginia and was instrumental in placing the Farm into a conservation easement just prior to her death. (To the right is a photo of Celia superimposed on a photo of the Farm.)

She was a First Vice President of the Veterans Administration Alumni Association, an active member and past president of the Middle Atlantic Chapter of the American Rhododendron Society, a founding member of the Piedmont Landowners Association, and she received awards from the Virginia Department of

Forestry for her activities promoting forestry stewardship and conservation. Her love of Rhododendrons (or “Rhodies” as she called them) may have been acquired from her Father, who was a cultivator of the flowers and who has one variety (“Porter”) named after him.

Celia also was an active member of Soroptimist International, a worldwide service organization committed to a world where women and girls together achieve their individual and collective potential, realize aspirations and have an equal voice in creating strong, peaceful communities. In 1980 the Soroptimists gave her the Making a Difference Award.

She served on the board of Mount Carmel House in Washington, D.C., which provides housing and intensive case management and support to homeless women and where Celia’s financial contributions funded the creation and maintenance of a garden.

In addition, Celia was active in the Piedmont Episcopal Church in Madison, Virginia, which was near the Farm and was her parents’ church. There she helped maintain its gardens and invited church members and others for an annual mid-May picnic at the Farm when the Rhododendrons were in full bloom.

After a long struggle with cancer, Celia died on December 6, 2012. Eulogies emphasized her personal qualities within the family.

For her sister, Susan Porter Walker, Celia was a sister and friend who “always focused on the other person, their comfort, well-being, successes and what she could do to contribute to that. She nurtured people.” Susan also said Celia had a “sense of adventure and interest in the world around her” and was “the glue that held this family so closely together. She was our emotional heart.”

Wallace Earl Walker, Celia’s brother-in-law, called her “a lady . . . for all the seasons of her remarkable life,” who played the following roles “with selflessness, grace and distinction:”

• As a daughter, she was “loving, attentive and considerate” to her parents. “She was with them when as they grew ill and was a nurse and administrator of their affairs.”
• As a wife, she exhibited “selflessness, kindness, and consideration” for her spouse and his four children and grandchildren.
• As a sister, she was “attentive and always supportive.”
• As an aunt, she was “loving” and like a grandmother. When she agreed with you, she said, “Sounds like a winner.” When she was teased or joked with, she said, “Give me a break.” When saying goodbye, she said, “Hang in there.”
• As a friend, she was “remarkable and faithful.”
• As a public servant, land conservationist, benefactor and humanitarian, she was “the model of a servant leader.”

Her survivors include her four step-children, who adored her (Charles L. Dollarhide II, David W. Dollarhide, Michael S. Dollarhide and Patricia C. Dollarhide Bovay); two brothers (Henrik P. Porter MD, of Camas, Washington and Robert W. Porter III and Debra of Burke, Virginia); sister (Susan P. Walker and Earl of Charleston, South Carolina); niece (Kathryn M. Walker of Chicago, Illinois); and nephews (Lieutenant Colonel Allen D. Walker and Diane of Arlington, Virginia, Jacob D. Porter and Molly of Fairfax, Virginia, and Jeffrey R. Porter of Burke, Virginia).

=============================================

Sources: Grinnell College Alumni Office file, Celia Porter Dollarhide; Obituary, Celia P. Dollarhide, Wash. Post (Dec. 31, 2012), http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/washingtonpost/obituary-print.aspx?n=celia-p-dollarhide&pid=162059421; Obituary, Celia Porter Dollarhide, http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/greenenews/obituary.aspx?n=celia-porter-dollarhide&pid=161678294#fbLoggedOut; Susan Porter Walker, Eulogy for Celia (Dec. 15, 2012); Wallace Earl Walker, Eulogy for Celia (Dec. 15, 2012); Congressman Christopher H. Smith, The Retirement of Celia P. Dollarhide, http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2001-05-15/html/CREC-2001-05-15-pt1-PgE795-3.htm;VA Testimony of Celia

P. Dollarhide, http://www.index.va.gov/search/va/va_search.jsp?QT=dollarhide&PS=www.gibill.va.gov&RC=1;Vance, Remembering Celia: Honoring one of Madison County’s 2012 easement donors (April 9, 2013), http://www.pecva.org/maps-and-resources/publications/piedmont-view/177-spring-2013-piedmont-view/836-remembering-celia-january-1940-december-2012; Obituary: Robert William Porter (4/23/2000), http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=tyrilla&id=I4603; Obituary, Charles Lewis Dollarhide (Jan. 28, 1993), http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/igm.cgi?op=GET&db=tyrilla&id=I25156; Obituary, Charles Lewis Dollarhide, (Jan. 29, 1993), http://newsok.com/charles-lewis-dollarhide/article/2420227; Soroptimist International http://www.soroptimistinternational.org; Mount Carmel House Mt. Carmel House, http://www.catholiccharitiesdc.org/page.aspx?pid=365.

 

Colbert, Judy Kathleen (Griffith) (12/27/1938–03/24/1996). Judy Griffith of Sac City, Iowa received a B.A. degree in Biology from Grinnell in 1961. She was a leader in the women’s residence halls governance (Read Hall Baffleboard, 1959-60, Pine Tree Hall President, 1960-61, and member of the A.W.S. Board, 1960-61). She was active in the women’s swimming club (White Caps) and a member of the women’s athletic club (Women’s Honor G).

Judy taught school for five years. Later in life, after raising two children, she renewed her interest in education and was elected to the Webster Groves (MO) school board. She served for six years ending her service as vice president and died while in office of breast cancer. Her service to the community was recognized with a garden dedicated to her at the grade school nearest her home.

Judy married Grinnell classmate Larry Colbert, June 25, 1961. They were married almost 35 years. They had two children. Their son Trenton G. Colbert graduated from Grinnell in 1988 and received his PhD in biology, Judy’s major at Grinnell. Their daughter, Suzanne, followed her into teaching. Three grandchildren followed.

 

Cooper, Lois Jean (Meyer) (08/26/1939–04/16/1997). Lois Meyer from Aurora, Illinois received a B.A. degree in Psychology from Grinnell in 1961. She was a leader in women’s residence hall governance (James Hall Baffleboard, 1959-60) and lived in Cleveland Hall (1957-58) and Pine Tree Hall (1960-61). She was active in a women’s dance group (Orchesis) and swimming club (White Caps).

She worked as a social worker in Cook County, Illinois.

In 1962 Lois married classmate Marcus Cooper, Jr., who was an officer in the U.S. Air Force, and they lived in many places as customary for military service. They had two children, Marcus Fleming Cooper III and Jamie Lynn Cooper. In 1992 Lois and Marcus were divorced.

 

Cooper, Marcus (“Mick”) Fleming, Jr.

December 21, 1939—January 4, 2015

Mick graduated from Grinnell College in 1961 having majored in economics. He was a Rawson Hall man. In 1962 he married his Grinnell College classmate Lois Jean Meyer (deceased 04/16/1997). They had two children, Marcus F III and Jamie Lynne. They were divorced in 1992.

 

 

 

He received his Master of Public Administration from Auburn University in 1976.

He entered the military by starting pilot training and eventually became a pilot/academic instructor. Among his many assignments, he served as an Air Force fighter pilot and leader having flown 101 missions over North Vietnam in the F-4C and as the Wing Commander over three bases in South Korea while flying the A-10. He received numerous honors and awards including the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Air Force Commendation Medal and the Viet Nam Service Medal. He was also the

holder of a 1986 patent for an aircraft take off and abort instrument which he invented.

He is survived by his second wife Kim; six children; ten grandchildren; and two great-grandchildren. He will be interred at Arlington National Cemetery.

Nancy Schmulbach Maly

 

Clapp, Robert Allen, Sr. (05/23/1939–09/04/2010). Bob Clapp of the town of Grinnell received his B.A. in Speech from the College in 1961. He nurtured his life-long passion for the theatre at the College by playing leading roles in campus productions and by being a member of the local drama group (Grinnell Players) and the National Collegiate Players.

Bob then obtained a M.A. degree in Theatre at the University of South Dakota. The next

stops were St. Peter, Minnesota, and Sheridan, Wyoming, where he was the Director of the Theatre at Gustavus Adolphus College and Sheridan College respectively.

For the next 25 years (1972-1997), Bob found his new and true home in Pendleton, Oregon. There he taught speech, theater and English at the Blue Mountain Community College and was the Resident Director of the College-Community Theater. In his honor, the theatre is being renamed “The Bob Clapp Theatre,” and a theater fund is being established in his name. (In addition, after he and his wife retired on the Pacific coast in Waldport, Oregon, he was the Founding President of the nearby Oregon Coast Community College Foundation, which has set up a scholarship in his name.)

Bob’s elder son, Robert Allen, Jr. (Rob), who is with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Portland, Oregon, wrote the following moving tribute to his father:

“Beloved. People just flat loved Bob–students, poets, colleagues, actors, family, friends, and anyone who spent five minutes bending his ear over whatever troubled them. Nearly everyone

. . . could tell immediately and unquestionably that he truly cared about them and was interested in what they had to say.

Husband. For just over 50 years to Caryl. In all the time they were together, right up to his very last hour, he couldn’t believe his incredible good fortune. She was a source of profoundest joy and strength and wonder to him all his days. It was mutual.

Father. To two sons and a daughter. He encouraged them to wander freely, took immense joy in their accomplishments and puckish delight in their pratfalls, and was fiercely proud of the dedication, skill, and intellect they brought to their diverging life paths. Today they are unified in their sorrow for their father, their mother, and each other.

Teacher. Bob taught thousands of us. It was more than his profession, it was his calling. He taught us how to inhabit a moment well enough to really deliver a line, he taught us how to make our voices strong rather than merely loud, he taught us how to call beauty out of thin air, he taught us the importance of silence, he taught us to find our light.

[Ways to memorialize Bob.] Ask good questions. Tell good jokes. Do the New York Times crossword puzzle in pen. Be kinder to a stranger than you think you need to be. Touch a loved one’s hand and really, really listen to them. Go have a beer with a dear friend you haven’t seen

for a while. And when you get settled and raise your glasses, please do so twice–once for the long absence you have just mended, and once for all the absences that will never be mended again.”

After a two-year battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Bob died in Newport, Oregon on September 4, 2010. He is survived by his wife Caryl Wagner Clapp ’59, their son Robert, their other son Jeffrey, who is Associate Professor of Theatre at Pacific Lutheran University, their daughter Blakesley A. Clapp ’91 who teaches at the Media Arts School of the Art Institute of Portland, Oregon and their grandson Blake. Bob was also survived by his brothers Charles M. Clapp ’58 and James E. Clapp ’64. Bob’s father, Grinnell Professor of Modern Foreign Languages, Harold L. Clapp, died in the Fall of Bob’s senior year at the College, and Bob’s mother, Laura Clapp, died in 2008.

 

Chinnery, Lawrence W., Sr. (09/18/1938–06/21/2006). Larry and I met on the first day of Grinnell’s New Student Days in late summer of 1957. We were roommates in the second floor room of Gates Hall over the arched entrance to the men’s residence halls.

Larry’s interest was mathematics. He was a soft-spoken, reserved young man, and he and I enjoyed going together to meetings of the Young Democrats and International Relations Club. On the other

hand, we did not like the upperclassmen’s hazing of freshmen. After two years at Grinnell, he left to work. Later he said that he liked Grinnell’s emphasis on the liberal arts and the low faculty/student ratio while enjoying the “beautiful, quiet campus with a very diverse selection of talented students, well-versed faculty and disciplines.” (In 1968 he received a B.S. in math from the University of Missouri in Kansas City, his home town.)

From 1960 through 1976, Larry was an employee of various corporations that had federal government contracts relating to computers for military intelligence. Behind the scenes during most of this period he was a Navy SEAL, a CIA agent or Naval or Air Force intelligence officer. He parachuted into Vietnam. He was captured by the Viet Cong for nearly three months before escaping and hiking to Cambodia. After another drop into the country, he was captured again, followed by another escape, only to be declared “dead” when a concussion bomb went off near him and to be placed in a body bag. After un-bagging, he recuperated in military hospitals in Japan.

Other accomplishments during this period of working on government contracts were developing aspects of the Apollo program for NASA and computer programs for the Strategic Air Command.

In 1976 he started one of the first retail computer stores in the U.S. This kept him busy until 1985. In 1980 while attending a computer conference at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas, it caught fire. He escaped by jumping 40 feet from his room. Two months later he found out that he had fractured his spine in the jump.

Larry at age four contracted paralytic polio and spent time in an iron lung. Thirty-four years later he started to experience various physical problems, and in 1992 he was diagnosed with metastatic carcinoid tumors in the liver and spleen (over two dozen) and with Carcinoid Syndrome. For the next 14 years Larry battled the disease. He became a leader of cancer survivor groups and of St. James’ Episcopal Church of Potomac, Maryland. He created his own website about the disease and his battle, www.noids.org. Through it all he kept his sense of humor.

Larry was survived by his second wife, Linda Goldsmith, five children, 12 grandchildren, three great-grandchildren and six siblings. His first wife, Betsy, died in 1998. (Obit, Lawrence W. Chinnery, Wash. Post, at B6, June 28, 2006.)

By Duane W. Krohnke

Bullwinkle, Thomas Ebner (10/20/39–06/15/84). Tom Bullwinkle from Flint, Michigan received his B.A. in English from Grinnell in June 1961. He was on the wrestling team for two years, a member of the staff of the campus radio station (KGRW) and a resident of South Younker Hall. He attended the Los Angeles Baptist Theological Seminary from 1961 to 1963. He died in the Denver, Colorado area in 1984 after a lengthy illness.

Carter, John Edward (September 30, 1939–March 22, 2020)

From North High School in Omaha, Nebraska, John started at Grinnell with most of us in Fall 1957. As a resident of Rawson Hall, he recalls making lifelong friendships and how hazing brought him and his freshman hallmates together. He was a member of the International Relations Club and the Young Republicans, John graduated with a B.A. in Political Science in June 1961.

As a political science major, he says he was “privileged to sit in the classrooms of a few of the most distinguished (and colorful) professors in the lore of the College.” But the highlight of his undergraduate experience was his Fall Semester 1959 on the Washington Semester Program at American University.

After his Grinnell graduation, he returned to his home state to obtain in 1963 a M.A. in Political Science at the University of Nebraska, after which he was a Research Assistant at the South Dakota State Legislative Research Council. He then returned to Omaha to teach college courses for several years as well as “unfulfilling years” at Mutual of Omaha Insurance Company.

John then embarked on a career in development and administration in non-profit organizations, especially the YMCA and the Omaha Home for Boys.

He is survived by his sister, Carolyn Blum Maack; nephews Michael (Rosemary) Blum and Steve (Debbie) Blum; niece Shelley (Mark) Ulch; and great-nieces and great-nephews.

Duane W. Krohnke

Davis, Karen Ann (Schlicht) (April 11, 1939– October 14, 2020)

Karen Schlicht from Sibley, Iowa was an active member of our class: Tassels (freshmen women’s honorary group), White Caps (women’s swimming), Young Democrats, Uncle Sam’s Club, International Relations Club and the Social Coordinating Committee, as well as the women students advisory group (Baffleboard) her junior year in Main Hall. She obtained her B.A. degree in American Studies and an Iowa Teaching Certificate on June 4, 1961.

Karen then taught 7th grade for a year in Arlington, Illinois followed by two years as a salesperson and buyer for Charles A. Stevens Company, a women’s clothing store on State Street in downtown Chicago.

In August 1964, Karen and Grinnell classmate, Allison Davis, were married, and they immediately left for the West African country of Mali (and former French colony) for the next three years. Karen used this time to become fluent in French, taught herself how to cook out of a Julia Child cookbook, reveled in daily shopping at the local markets and taught the children of American diplomats and USAID staff in a small school. While vacationing in Paris, she began a lifelong romance with the City of Light.

In 1967 Karen returned to Chicago, where her two sons were born: Jared Allison in 1968 and Cullen Jamison in 1971, the latter of whom obtained a B.A. degree from Grinnell in 1994. After Karen and Allison were divorced in 1987, she had custody of the sons and raised them on the North side of Chicago.

Karen acquired a M.A. degree in Linguistics from the University of Illinois-Chicago with an eye to teaching English as a foreign language while also starting a career in real estate sales. She loved to read and re-read Proust and a new discovery, Lee Childs’ Reacher, and spending time in Paris and Provence. She was a devoted friend and a hostess of wonderful dinner parties. In 1986 she described herself as a “housewife, mother, chauffeur, gardener, volunteer and general all-around handy person.” A devout Democrat, she made certain her vote for Biden-Harris counted in last year’s presidential election.

For the last 25 years of her life, Karen had a loving, caring partnership with Bruce Thomas, whom she had met in connection with a real estate transaction. He was (and still is) active as a writer, consultant, teacher and non-profit entrepreneur helping children.

Karen is survived by her two sons, Jared’s wife and brother-in-law (Chung and Taik Csong), five grandchildren (Quinn, Jamison, Spencer, Delilah and Wallace) as well as her companion and partner, Bruce Thomas. Contributions in her

memory to the Shriner’s Hospitals would be appreciated.

Duane W. Krohnke