Richard Hans Griesser ’51
Richard Hans “Dick” Griesser, 85, died February 18 in Appleton, WI.
Born April 24, 1929, in Munich, Germany, he was the son of Charlotte and Hans Griesser.
Griesser graduated from Loyola Academy in 1947, where he played football and excelled in swimming.
He had never heard of Wabash until his aunt showed him a Reader’s Digest article about the school, but once here, he embraced it. He was a member of the Sphinx Club, Young Republicans, Army Reserves, and Phi Kappa Psi. He also held the distinction of being the first Wabash student to take a class from legendary Professor of Economics Ben Rogge, who was the instructor of a summer school course Griesser took a few months before Rogge began teaching at Wabash.
After graduation, Griesser enlisted in the U.S. Air Force and was involved in aviation training, graduating as a 2nd lieutenant and radar observer. He was also a classroom and flight instructor until returning to civilian life in 1955.
Griesser worked as a life insurance agent for Franklin Life, Allstate, and Homeco Life Companies. In 1973 he joined United Grocers
of Little Chute, WI, and started an insurance department for the food warehouse to serve the needs of the warehouse and its members.
He retired in 1990.
Griesser had been a passionate recruiter for Wabash and manned a booth each year at the Xavier High School College Fair. He was a class agent and the first recipient of the Warren Shearer Class Agent Award. Director of Alumni and Parent Relations Tom Runge ’71 calls Griesser “a mentor and advisor who helped me navigate the skies of alumni relations and class agents.”
Griesser served as a substitute teacher in the Appleton, Little Chute, Kaukauna, Kimberly, Menasha and Hortonville school districts in Wisconsin.
He was preceded in death by his parents; son, Christopher; brothers, John and Robert Griesser ’57; sisters, Charie and Lisa; and his first wife, Nancy Fyfe.
He is survived by his wife, Elizabeth Griesser, 4608 Grand Meadows Drive, Appleton, WI 54915; children, Rick Griesser, Terri Schultz, Gina Kennedy, Cathy Parolina, and Sue Knowles; step-sons, Eric Vander Steen, Kimble Vander Steen; and nine grandchildren.
A Remembrance
Wabash President Byron Trippet ’30 once wrote, “The intertwining of human lives is at the heart of the spell which Wabash has repeatedly cast on a long succession of young men.”
Few knew that magic better than Dick Griesser.
One could argue that he had great teachers of it at Wabash, where he was one of the co-founders of the Gamma chapter of Phi Psi after then-Dean Byron Trippet re-activated the house. The story of those men—including Paul Jones ’51, Warren Jackson ’51, Jimmy Ching ’51, Marsh “Bud” Jones ’50, Don Martin ’51, and Bob Morris ’50 —has been told on these pages before. It may be the truest lesson on Wabash friendships and how they can endure for a lifetime.
Dick, who served as manager of that first Phi Psi house, seemed to recognize that our need to connect to one another is, as neuroscientist Matthew Lieberman puts it, “as fundamental as our need for food and water.”
As Class Agent (and the first recipient of the Warren Shearer Class Agent Award) he kept the men of the Class of 1951 connected to one another with lively, personable letters and phone calls. He urged his classmates to make time for one another. Once, promoting a mini-reunion at Homecoming 2004, Dick wrote to them: “I know it is tough to make plans so far in advance
at our age, but why not take a chance!”
Dick always took that chance.
He also helped connect new brothers of Phi Psi to their history, speaking at the re-dedication in 2007, among other events. With his fellow
co-founders he connected Wabash Magazine and the College Archives to that history, as well.
He even connected high-schoolers to a bit of it when he was substitute teaching during his “retirement” years, regaling them with tales
from the trip he and Jimmy Ching had taken to Mexico in Ching’s old green Nash.
Dick’s family could no doubt tell many stories of his expansive life outside of Wabash and his Wabash brothers. But this one captures his understanding of the mundane but deep ways we need one another. It was told by the late Paul Jones.
Paul lost both of his parents when he was a student at Wabash. Dick was his roommate. In both cases he had to deliver the bad news.
“You want to hear that kind of thing from a friend, not a stranger,” Dick told me years later. Paul said, “That was a hard time—I was
just thankful to make it through.”
Dick drove his friend home for both services.
“He was real good about that. He had a big Buick convertible,” Paul remembered. “It was a sad trip, but a comfortable one. It was good
to have a friend around.”
It was always good to have Dick Griesser around. He held many people in his heart and a lot of people together through his words.
That “intertwining of human lives” Byron Trippet describes may seem like magic, but it requires faithfulness and persistence. It happens because there are these rare people who see our yearning, pick up the slack, and nurture the connections that create a community.
Dick Greisser was one the best.
—Tom Runge ’71 and Steve Charles H’70
George Fleming Jones ’55
George Fleming Jones, 79, died April 20 in Fairfax, VA.
Born June 27, 1935, in San Angelo, TX, he was the son of Cora and George F. Jones Sr.
Jones graduated from Austin High School in 1951 at the age of 16. He graduated magna cum laude from Wabash and received an honorary doctor of laws degree from the College in 2000.
He earned master’s degrees at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy in 1956 and from Stanford University in 1967. He graduated from the National War College in 1978, where he received the U.S. Army Association prize for “excellence in research and writing.” Among his other honors was a Superior Honor Award from the State Department in 1989 for “persistence, dedication and courage in promotion of the national interests of the United States” in Chile.
Jones, a specialist in Latin American affairs, served as U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Guyana from January 1992 to August 1995.
He worked closely with former President Carter to support free and fair elections in Guyana in October 1992, which resulted in the first transfer of power from an incumbent to an opposition party.
He previously served as Deputy Chief of Mission in Chile, 1985 to 1989, and in Costa Rica, 1982 to 1985. He was twice Senior Adviser on Latin American affairs to the U.S. delegation to the U.N. General Assembly in New York. His other posts included assignments to embassies in Ecuador, Ghana, Venezuela, and Guatemala, and as political adviser to the U.S. Mission to the International Atomic Energy Agency, Vienna, Austria.
He was a member of the U.S. government delegation to the funeral of Guyana’s President Cheddi Jagan in March 1997.
After retiring from the Foreign Service in 1995, Jones became a specialist in support for democratic election processes and election observation. From 1996 to 1999 he was Director of Programs for the Americas at the International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES), and in 2000-2005 he was Director of Democracy and Governance Programs for Development Associates Inc. He chaired international obser-
ver missions to elections in Paraguay (1996), Honduras (1997), and Guyana (1997), and was
a member of observer missions to Ecuador, Haiti, Jamaica, Mexico, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela. He was senior technical adviser to the Guyana Elections Commission during the 2001 national elections.
He was also active in the American Foreign Service Association (AFSA), serving on its governing board for five years, including two terms as a vice president. He also served four years on the editorial board of the Foreign
Service Journal.
He is survived by his wife, Maria Jones, 3804 Acosta Road, Fairfax, VA 22031; sons, George F. Jones III ’83, Robert A. Jones, and Dr. Michael Jones-Correa; daughter, Mary Louise Blanton; and seven grandchildren.
A Remembrance
George entered Wabash when he was 16 and he came from Texas, so age and home location made him different from most of his classmates. We met in a PE class soon after he arrived, where we were supposed to practice wrestling holds. George had no athletic interest or ability, so I told him to lie down while I twisted his leg.
In contrast, his intellectual talents were soon apparent, and his four years at Wabash were spent demonstrating them.
He joined The Bachelor news staff his first year, along with Bill Brantley and myself, and he became editor the second semester of his junior year. Bill preceded George as editor the first semester of his junior year. I wrote a column for the paper while they were editors. The office of President Sparks sometimes thought our paper was too lively. George was also on the debate team his first year, along with Brantley and myself, and he began his long involvement with the Chess Club.
He contributed to the College in many ways while he was a student: He was a member of The Public Affairs Forum, the Speakers Bureau, the Debate Squad, member of Tau Kappa Alpha, the National Forensics Honorary, The News Bureau, Blue Key, and Young Democrats Club.
Bill Brantley, Al Dewey, Bill Coleman, and I were all classmates and good friends of George, and we knew about his interest in the Foreign Service. We also felt some social polish would help his career, so he was invited as a senior, to join our fraternity, Kappa Sigma.
George had long been interested in international affairs, and after a earning a master’s degree in international relations, he joined the State Dept. His fraternity experience undoubtedly helped his diplomatic career.
When George was Ambassador to Guyana, a crisis broke out during the country’s national elections. Protesters directed by a political faction within the government that expected to lose the election were stoning election commission headquarters and threatening to storm the building. With the lives of election workers and the fragile democratic process in Guyana at risk, George met with the chief of police and requested beefed-up security. At the same time, former President Jimmy Carter made his way to the building and called Guyana’s president, suggesting that allowing protesters to storm the building and assault a former President of the United States would probably not be good for international relations.
The elections were completed and declared “free and fair.” Those events left a powerful impression on George. When he retired from
the State Department in 1994, he went to work at the International Federation for Election Systems as an election observer.
He visited Berkeley now and then, and we talked a lot about Wabash and how it had
shaped us. He was Some Little Giant.
—Mac Laetsch ’55, Berkeley, CA
David E. Ong ’65
David E. Ong, 71, died April 25 in Nashville, TN.
Born August 16, 1943, in Elkhart, IN, he was the son of Mary and Richard Ong ’45.
While at Wabash he was a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon and graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa. During his years at Wabash, he received a Miles Laboratories scholarship to work part time at their facility, which spurred his interest in biochemistry.
He earned his PhD from Yale University in 1970 and arrived at Vanderbilt later that year
as a research associate and National Institutes of Health (NIH) postdoctoral fellow.
In 1974 he joined the laboratory of Frank Chytil, professor of biochemistry. Chytil’s laboratory had just discovered CRBP, a retinol (vitamin A)-binding protein. Ong discovered the retinoic acid binding protein CRABP, which led to publications in Nature and Science.
Ong received his first NIH R01 grant in 1977 and his second in 1983. That same year, he and Chytil shared the Osborne and Mendel Award from the Nutrition Foundation.
In November of 1975, Ong was appointed to the faculty as a research assistant professor and, in 1981, was promoted to research associate professor. In 1984, influenced by Chytil and Leon Cunningham, PhD, then chair of biochemistry, Ong was promoted to associate professor and, in 1987, to professor. He became an emeritus professor in 2008.
“The thing I remember most about Dave was his absolute dedication to training students on how to give quality presentations,” says Lawrence Marnett, PhD, associate vice chancellor for research and senior associate dean for biomedical sciences. “He felt very strongly that learning how to communicate was as important as learning how to do research, and the biochemistry students certainly benefited from his dedication.”
Truly a renaissance man, Ong was an amateur photographer, videographer, and painter. He was also a collector of art and sculpture. He enjoyed gardening, and his Bonsai trees were his living sculptures. He enjoyed woodworking, and he loved games—he had a pool table and seven pinball machines.
Ong’s favorite avocation was music. He had an extensive collection of vinyl records and CDs that covered early to modern jazz, gospel, blues, bluegrass, and rock ’n’ roll. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of the styles, performers, and bands and their history, especially jazz.
He was preceded in death by his parents and a brother, Daniel. He is survived by his fiancée, Lili Marx; brothers, Stephen Ong ’71, B. Nelson Ong ’73, Page Ong, and Kevin Ong; sister, Megan Corbridge; stepson, John Hauber ’90; and stepdaughter, Julie Maxham.
A Remembrance
When alumni of the College’s Tau Kappa Epsilon (TKE) fraternity returned in 2012 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the chapter’s re-establishment on campus, they marked another milestone in Wabash history: TKE was the first fraternity at Wabash to admit African-American students.
“There was a set of students on campus then that felt that the status quo needed to be changed, and needed to be changed soon,” Brad Johnson ’71 recalled during that celebration. “As a result, in the late winter and early spring of 1962, these students—some from other fraternities, some independents—organized and decided they would bring to the campus an integrated fraternity.”
David Ong was one of those students.
“This wasn’t something imposed on us,” Ong said during a panel discussion about the founding. “We did it ourselves, and by doing something to solve this problem, we encouraged change in others.”
Jack Hauber ’66 was in the first TKE pledge class, and Ong was his pledge father. He offers this remembrance:
Like all the founding Tekes, Dave had a deep belief in the dignity of human beings. TKE was the fraternity on campus to recognize the significance of integration and openly recruit black and Asian students. TKE was the first to eliminate “Hell Week” and replace it with “Help Week” (still not fun, but not demeaning either).
The result was that for a long time we attracted a “strange” group of fraternity members who wanted to be a part of that environment, but didn’t want the traditional fraternity experience.
Dave believed strongly in that dream and put up with lots of derision from the other fraternities, often being on the receiving end of vandalism and theft.
We made it through those days and grew.
Dave had great focus and determination to achieve his goals, whether that was to make sure that the Tekes were successful or that
he would be the Valedictorian of his class.
Failure was not an option for him, and so, as things turned out, it wasn’t for us, either.
—John “Jack” Hauber ’66
Martha Riddle
Martha A. Riddle, 62, of Russellville, IN, died Monday, March 9, 2015.
She was born Oct 6, 1952, in Crawfordsville, to Kenneth and Christine (Hall) Melvin. She married Jeff Riddle on April 26, 1986.
She was employed at Wabash College for more than 17 years.
Survivors include her husband, Jeff; daughters, Ruby Wilson and Barbara Hunley; and her grandchildren; and mother, Christine.
She was proceeded in death by infant daughter Paula Monnett; father, Kenneth Melvin; brother, Carl Melvin; three nephews; and a niece.
A Remembrance
During most of my first 20 years editing Wabash Magazine, I wasn’t able to get the thing to press without at least a couple all-nighters. Around 11 p.m. I’d realize I still had many hours of work ahead of me. About 5 a.m. I’d start to drag, just short of finishing.
Then I’d hear Martha Riddle come in.
For years, Martha, took care of us in Kane House and the Hays Alumni Center. She arrived before the sun came up. More than once her knock on the door woke me up and got me back to work. But usually she’d just come into the office and we’d talk for a while before she grabbed the trash or tried to vacuum whatever uncontested space she could find on my much-too-cluttered floor.
Our conversations ranged from health concerns to difficulties encountered by our kids to the joy of playing with grandkids to friends we had lost. Just down-to-earth conversations about people who mattered to us, carried on when I was half-asleep.
But the image of her standing in the doorway and the sound of her voice stay with me for reasons I’m only beginning to understand.
Martha’s pausing in her work to talk with and listen to me made me feel like what I’d spent the night trying to do—gathering the moments and remembrances of alumni, teachers, and students—had meaning beyond my paycheck. And I was grateful again to live and work in a place where such conversations are an everyday event. Martha did this for all kinds of folks
on campus.
Martha taught me another lesson in a very different role.
For many years on the Sunday morning of Commencement in the basement of the Chapel, she and her co-workers in Campus Services would fit our seniors for their caps and gowns. They spent the morning helping guys of all sizes and in various stage of consciousness fit into an ever-diminishing number of gowns that had seen better days.
Most of our seniors were taller than Martha; several towered over her. Sometimes she’d have to stand on tiptoe to fasten the collars. But she seemed to enjoy the work, dressed in her finest, not unlike the mothers and grandmothers just arriving on campus for the day’s festivities.
Of all the good things the College did on that day—speeches and spectacles and processions and honorary degrees—Martha’s work shone the brightest. The woman who had literally cleaned up after these guys was now making sure they looked their best on their big day. Some of them didn’t know her, but they realized they were being cared for. And for the many who did know her, it was that first grateful but difficult goodbye
of the day.
I recall the morning Martha was fitting Jesse James ’08 for his gown, making sure the collar snap wasn’t too tight, stepping back to make sure he looked good. I pressed the shutter on my camera just as Jesse leaned forward and embraced her.
Jesse’s a big guy. In the photo Martha is mostly enfolded in his arms and gown. You can’t see the expression on her face. But just imagine how any alma mater—any nurturing mother—might appear at such a moment.
When I look at that photo I see a college family beyond the degrees, job titles, or economic status. And I see a good woman who, once or twice every three months at 6 a.m., reminded me that the most important thing we do here, in a world gone mad and cold with speed and efficiency, is to take time for each other.
—Steve Charles