Obituaries

Born in a log cabin in a northern Québec mining community on December 20, 1945, Tony Keefer gave early evidence of extraordinary abilities. Growing up in Toronto, where his family moved when he was six, he was a keen sailor at the RCYC Junior Club; a budding entrepreneur who supplemented his boyhood newspaper route with a solo business of designing, building and marketing wooden birdhouses across north Toronto; the most highly decorated Queen’s Scout in Ontario; and an outstanding student, routinely earning the highest grade average in the province.

Following in the wake of family members including great-grand-uncle Harold (College number 17), his father Thomas (2330), and his brother Bowie (6395), Tony entered RMC in 1963. He graduated four years later with the highest grades in the College’s history, with widespread gratitude for the generosity with which he had put his own abilities to work in assisting classmates and junior cadets in their studies, and with a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford.

Tony’s accomplishments at Oxford included (in ascending order of importance) piloting a fast and powerful sports car, writing a brilliantly complex doctoral thesis on control theory, and, in 1969, winning the heart of Deborah Syson, the love of his life, to whom Tony was very happily married for fifty-three years.

After several years of consultancy work for the UK government, Tony entered the Canadian civil service. His abilities were quickly recognized in Ottawa, and he enjoyed a meteoric rise to positions of senior responsibility in several ministries. He was subsequently ‘head-hunted’ for senior positions in the United Nations in Geneva: there he worked for several UN agencies, but concentrated his efforts in the World Intellectual Property Organization, whose work he guided for more than two decades.

Tony was impelled throughout his life by high ideals—to which he himself gave memorable expression at the time of his graduation from RMC in an address he was invited to give to the College’s faculty and students. Taking as his subject the pursuit of excellence, he demanded that we reject “the cult of mediocrity” and stand up to challenges and difficulties.

The “highest aim of life,” Tony said, “is not the negation of all that has gone before.” And yet “To excel, to become a person of integrity and quality, it is necessary […. to] make a positive offering to counter the error and ignorance that undoubtedly exist in the world; [… and to] accept the responsibility given us by the present and the future.” History, he said, “shows us the mistakes of the past. But it also indicates that it would be presumptuous to assume that we will not also make mistakes. Let us then use past experience, and more important, the lessons of the present, to minimize our inevitable errors.”

In working to make the world “a better place in which to live,” and at the same time to excel as individuals and as leaders, “we must try to replace apathy with enthusiasm, aimlessness with ambition, and complacency with determination. I believe that we must have the vision to set our sights high, the courage to adhere to a set of principles, and the self-discipline to keep ourselves headed toward our goals. Let us not be self-centered and petty; let us dedicate our lives not to small purposes but to lofty ideals.” In Tony’s professional and personal life, in which he was devoted throughout to the well-being and happiness of others, these ideals found a very full expression.

Following his retirement, Tony was invited to lecture at the University of Geneva. But he took more pleasure in following the brilliant careers in finance and business of his and Deborah’s two daughters, Lucy and Rosie, and of their husbands Piers Playfair and Simon Hansford—and greater pleasure still in the role of loving grandfather to Lucy’s and Piers’ children Scarlett, Georgina and James, and Rosie’s and Simon’s children Charlotte, Henry, and Nicky.

Tony died, after a long illness, on October 19, 2022. He is remembered, with imperishable love and deep admiration, by Deborah, by Lucy and Piers, by Rosie and Simon, and by their dear children; by Tony’s siblings Bowie (and his wife Anna), Michael (and Janice), and Anne Elise (and Marko); and by a wide circle of loyal friends and former colleagues.

On the afternoon of Saturday, October 15, 2022, in the culmination of a rich and impactful life, George Albert Drake, 88, died peacefully at home surrounded by his loving family. His memory lives on through his wife of 62 years, Sue; son Chris and spouse Kay, and their children, Nick and spouse Jenny, Elizabeth, and Hannah; daughter Cindy and partner Louie Vencato, and Cindy’s children, Danielle, Lila, and Samantha Drake-Flam; daughter Melanie and spouse Tom Wickersham; and the countless other lives he touched.

Spanning from February 25, 1934 to a beautiful autumn afternoon in October 2022, George’s life was many things. Indeed, you would be hard pressed to find a piece of writing about George, before or after his passing, that does not highlight his numerous facets: husband, father, grandfather, athlete, historian, musician, president, two-time pastor, volunteer, mentor, and so much more.

When not speaking confidently and knowledgeably on a seemingly endless number of subjects, informed by his voracious reading and boundless curiosity, he was quietly observing and asking questions; always learning. Though to hear him tell it, this was not always the case. “I was a pretty obstreperous young man,” he claimed when describing family dinners of his youth, particularly those involving Roy Smalley, friend of the family and shortstop for George’s beloved Chicago Cubs.

George excelled at the college of his choice, Grinnell, winning the Archibald Prize for the highest grades in his 1956 graduating class. He also led the cross country team to its first conference championship and personally qualified for the national championships, where he placed 49th. George was inducted into the Grinnell College Athletics Hall of Fame in 2002. He remained active throughout his life: just weeks before his passing, still riding a recumbent bicycle.

Upon graduation from Grinnell, George embarked on a Fulbright Scholarship in Paris, followed immediately by a Rhodes Scholarship that took him to Merton College at Oxford from 1957-1959. After Oxford, George returned stateside, where he initially pursued his seminary degree through the Chicago Theological Seminary and eventually completed his Ph.D. in Church History at the University of Chicago. It was during this time that he reconnected with a fellow Grinnell alum, Sue Ratcliff, and, after a whirlwind courtship, the two were engaged and soon married.

Less than a year later, the couple found themselves in the mountain town of Marble, Colorado when George took a summer job as the pastor of the small church there. George and Sue fell in love with the beautiful Crystal River Valley and together built a cabin they would return to frequently for the rest of his life. George taught at Colorado College from 1964 to 1979, teaching history and eventually becoming Dean. During this time, he and Sue grew their family by three: Chris, Cindy, and Melanie.

Eventually, George found his way back to Grinnell, first as a trustee in 1970 and then in 1979 as the first alumnus to serve as president. In his memoir he writes of his surprise when his fellow trustees found him qualified to serve as Grinnell’s president, and yet, George served that role with distinction for twelve years. The changes he made during his presidency helped put Grinnell on the path to becoming the top tier liberal arts institution that it is today.

In 1991, after stepping down from the presidency, George and Sue joined the Peace Corps in Lesotho where George taught English to high schoolers, while Sue trained local elementary school teachers. Upon their return to Grinnell in 1993, George taught history full-time for the next ten years, which he recalled as “among the most satisfactory of my life. I loved being back in the classroom, and I loved the students.” Although he retired at age 70, George continued teaching a tutorial at Grinnell and in Grinnell’s Liberal Arts in Prison Program at Newton Correctional Facility, a cause to which he remained deeply devoted.

In 2020, in the face of the remote instruction necessitated by the global COVID-19 pandemic, George reluctantly elected to stop teaching. Despite the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer that came soon afterward, he remained deeply involved and connected to the College. To the very end, he was, in his words, “a Grinnell College junkie.”

George also gave his time and talents widely to the Grinnell, Iowa community including through the library, their UCC Church, the hospital, and the Mayflower Home, to name just a few. He had a lifelong love of singing, and many fondly remember him on stage as a member of Shults & Co., performing songs as well as dance routines, much to the audience’s delight.

When concluding his 2019 biography of Joe Rosenfield, Mentor, George wrote that he wished to remind his readers of “the richness of the man.” It seems fitting, then, to do the same for him, although it will no doubt be unnecessary for those who knew, loved, and were forever changed by George Albert Drake, a good man who lived richly and well.

Henry Ronald Kloppenburg died October 12, 2022 at Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. He was born June 21, 1945 at Humboldt, Saskatchewan. He attended elementary and secondary schools in Humboldt, then moved on to the University of Saskatchewan where he obtained an Arts and a Law degree. In 1968, Henry went to Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar. He graduated with a Bachelor of Civil Laws in 1970. After returning to Canada, Henry served as a Law Clerk to Justice E.M. Hall at the Supreme Court of Canada and was called to the Saskatchewan Bar in 1971. Henry continued to practice law until the time of his death, the last several years in semiretirement. Since 1977, Henry practiced law with his wife, Cheryl.

We are saddened to hear of the passing of David. He came up to Oxford in 1962 and studied a BA in Forestry.

Robert had a long and illustrious career as a surgeon, specializing in Otolaryngology (Ear, Nose and Throat) and Head and Neck surgery. He was on staff and Chief of Surgery at the York-Finch/Humber Hospital in West Toronto. He practised medicine in the Jane and Finch area for 45 years.

A conscientious student, Robert was educated at: Holy Innocence Elementary School in St. Andrew's Grenada, St. Andrew's Anglican Secondary School, Grenada Boys Secondary School, University College of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica and Jesus College, Oxford University, England. In 1962, Robert was selected for the Rhodes Scholarship for the Caribbean and completed his medical training at Jesus College, Oxford University. 

In his youth and early adulthood Robert was a cricketer, a spin bowler specifically. Later on his energies became focused on golf and he joined Spring Lakes Golf Club in Stouffville. 

Read a full obituary for Robert

Paul was born on November 1, 1962, in Kansas City, Missouri, to Saverio Paul and Barbara (Merli) Giordano. He grew up in an extended Italian American Catholic family that also included his sister, grandparents, numerous aunts, uncles and cousins on both sides who frequently gathered on Sundays and other days to celebrate special events.

Paul attended Trailwood Elementary School and Indian Creek Junior High in Overland Park, Kansas. In 1981, his senior year at Shawnee Mission South High School, he was the catcher on the baseball team that won the state championship. That fall he enrolled at the University of Missouri-Columbia where he met his future wife and was a member of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity, where he made many lifelong friends. 

That same year he was accepted into Harvard Law School and simultaneously awarded the Rhodes Scholarship, one of only 32 U.S. residents to receive the prestigious award that year. He deferred his Harvard acceptance for two years and put his Rhodes study at Oxford University on the fast-track, completing three years of courses in two years.

On August 16, 1986, he married Mary Margaret Sterner in Kansas City, Missouri, and she joined him in Oxford. In 1987, Paul graduated from Oxford University with a master’s degree. That autumn the young couple returned to the U.S. and Paul entered Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1990, Paul received his jurisprudence doctorate cum laude and then began a career in law, banking and insurance that spanned more than three decades.

Read the full obituary for Paul Giordano.

John H. Chettle passed away on Sunday, September 25, 2022. He was 84 and leaves behind his wife, Judith, his children Anne and William, grandsons, Will and Wyatt Reinke, and more than 10,000 books. Born in South Africa, he was a Rhodes Scholar and lawyer for many years with Freedman, Levy, Kroll & Simonds, specializing in International Trade Law. He loved his family, books, art, antiques, and a good—but always polite—argument.

Pete MacVeagh passed away on September 19, 2022, at age 90.

Graduate of Webster Groves, Missouri, High School Class of 1949, received an academic scholarship to Harvard University, awarded a Rhodes Scholarship, and earned a Master's Degree in History and Literature from Balliol College at Oxford University.

Served in the United States Army, going through Officer Candidate School "OCS", and was a Paratrooper in the 82nd Airborne Division. He then worked for the St. Louis, Missouri, office of Price Waterhouse, studied at night school to earn his CPA, and enjoyed many years of consulting work in the Midwest. Was transferred to the Washington, D.C., office of Price Waterhouse to do international consulting, including consulting projects for the World Bank. His work carried him to Japan, South America, the Middle East, Africa, and Turkey, and he enjoyed the interesting people he worked with and learning about their cultures. After retirement from Price Waterhouse, he and his son, Chip, worked on consulting with the goal of remediating coal mine land using agricultural waste to renovate the bare land. He enjoyed spending time with his wife, Patricia, whom he adored throughout their entire marriage, and whom he thought about every day after her passing. He was an avid organic vegetable gardener, and enjoyed travel, walking and hiking outdoors, horseback riding, and reading. He had wide-ranging interests in books, and read about science, history, military history, and biographies.

One of Cornell College’s only Rhodes Scholars and a longtime Coe College professor of philosophy and computer science, Peter McCormick ’65 died Aug. 29, 2022, in Durango, Colorado. He was 79.

He held a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Michigan, an M.S. in computer science from the University of Iowa, and B.A.s from Cornell College (in philosophy and German) and Oxford University. At Cornell he played violin, sang in Oratorio, and joined the swim team.

McCormick taught at Coe from 1974–2018, helping to establish Coe’s honors program in 1982. He played a critical role in integrating the internet to campus operations as Coe’s first director of academic computing in 1994. He firmly believed in a liberal arts education and vibrant campus experience, and in addition to constantly advocating for the importance of developing a breadth of knowledge, was a familiar presence at athletics and campus events. “Beyond his incredible intellect, Peter was a gifted athlete, and for many of us, he good-naturedly delivered the worst thrashing we ever received on the squash court,” the Coe President’s Office wrote in a message after his death.

He established the Peter McCormick ’65 Cultural Diversity Endowment at Cornell to promote student awareness and understanding of cultural diversity in the U.S., especially the cultures of historically important groups such as Native Americans, that have become marginalized in contemporary America.