Class Notes: University Community

A “secret millionaire.” A football player turned cheerleader.

A scientist. A doctor. A jack of all trades. A maestro.

The devastating toll of the COVID-19 pandemic included alumni and faculty members from all walks of life—and all corners of the globe.

One survived a Soviet Union invasion in Estonia and years in refugee camps during World War II. Another fled Germany with his family on the eve of that momentous war. One overcame poverty and became a millionaire who willed most of her fortune to the universities that shaped her career path.

Each made an impact—on their families and on the University community.

This list builds on an earlier collection and is based on information we received through June. If we missed someone, email us.

Stanley Hattman
Professor emeritus, biology

Hattman was a professor in the Department of Biology from 1968 until his retirement in 2004. He died in December 2020 at 82.

Hattman made major contributions to the field of molecular biology, specifically his research on the regulation of gene expression. “He provided a foundation for the field through his research in pure science,” says former colleague Cheeptip Benyajati, an associate professor of biology. “With his advances in mapping the human genome, the scientific world is now applying to humans some of this foundational research that Stan undertook.”

Benyajati remembers Hattman as “a great colleague, who was always so kind and bright.” Even in retirement, Hattman maintained an office on the River Campus and visited often until last year’s COVID-19 lockdown.

The Brooklyn native attended the City College of New York and was a physics major until his junior year, when he had what he called “an epiphany” after taking his first biology course. “It came during one of the first dissection exercises; viz. the earthworm,” Hattman wrote in a Department of Biology newsletter in 2004. “I was blown away when I discovered all that ‘stuff’ inside. Biology suddenly became interesting.”

He held postdoctoral research appointments at the Max Planck Institute in Munich, Germany—where he became fluent in German—and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx before joining the Rochester faculty.

Hattman and his wife, Rosemarie, had three daughters, Heidi, Ursula ’89, and Rebecca ’91, and five grandchildren. Rosemarie later served as an administrator in the Department of English at Rochester.

Evelyn Lutz ’55N, ’63

Known to friends and family as “Evie,” Lutz was born in Elmira, New York, during the Great Depression. While in high school, she worked at her family’s meat market to save money for her college education. She earned bachelor’s degrees in nursing from the School of Nursing in 1955 and from the College in 1963 and added a master’s degree from the University of Colorado and a doctorate from Case Western Reserve University in Ohio.

Although she went on to a highly successful career as a nurse, educator, and author, Lutz lived a frugal existence, buying only what she needed and saving items others would throw away. She saved enough money to be considered a millionaire—several publications called her a “secret millionaire” after her death—and never forgot the schools that paved the way for her success.

“Her universities were very special to her,” Lutz’s cousin, Sue Mower, told Fox News. “She never married. She had no children. The universities were her life.”

Lutz died in November 2020 of complications from COVID-19. She was 86. In her will, she gave much of her fortune to her alma maters—including support to establish the Dr. Evelyn M. Lutz Nursing Research Endowment at the University of Rochester to support data analysis, pilot funding, research project coordination activities, and recruitment. Kathy Rideout ’95W (EdD), dean of the School of Nursing, said it was the largest gift the school has received to support research and will benefit future generations.

Richard (Rick) Renzi ’75

Renzi graduated with a bachelor’s degree in political science at Rochester and also played quarterback under legendary football coach Pat Stark. He earned a law degree from Albany Law School and was a practicing attorney in the Rochester area before his death in December 2020 at age 67.

Terry Gurnett ’77, associate director of athletics, says Renzi was a “lifelong supporter of all UR sports” who kept in touch with many of his teammates and coaches long after he had graduated. He looked forward to attending the Rochester homecoming football game each fall.

Ray O’Neill ’74 became close friends with Renzi at Albany Law School and later as colleagues. “Rick was a very generous person with a good sense of humor,” O’Neill says. “He laughed the hardest when he was the butt of a joke.”

O’Neill says Renzi was devoted to his children, Robin and Chris, and his grandson, Finn. He regularly attended University basketball and football games and often brought bagels for his friends who attended Sunday basketball games.

“I still feel like he’s not really gone, but just that I haven’t seen him in a bit,” O’Neill says. “I assume it will be more real when we all attend a game again and he is not there enjoying the give and take between friends.”

Goetz Richter
Professor emeritus, medicine

Richter joined the faculty of Rochester’s School of Medicine as a professor of pathology in 1967 and served there until his retirement in 1992. He continued to give lectures as professor emeritus until moving to Dunwoody, Georgia, in 1999.

He died in Atlanta in December 2020 at age 97.

Goetz was born in Germany in 1922 and lived there until moving with his family to Illinois in 1939 on the eve of World War II. He attended Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, then enrolled in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and enlisted in the US Army during the war.

He received his medical degree from Johns Hopkins in 1948 and completed a residency in pathology at the New York Hospital–Cornell Medical Center, where he was one of the pioneers in the field of electron microscopy and experimental pathology. Richter joined the US Navy during the Korean War, then served on the faculty of the Cornell University Medical College until coming to Rochester in 1967.

Richter learned to play the violin while growing up in Germany and loved classical music. He was married to Mary Lucretia Henry from 1946 until her death 40 years later, and they had three children.

Parker Sherwood ’75E

Before receiving his bachelor of music degree from the Eastman School of Music, Sherwood was a marimbist and percussionist who played regularly with the Albany Symphony while still a student at Scotia-Glenville High School in Schenectady, New York.

A man of many passions who reinvented himself numerous times, he held a master of arts degree in philosophy from Syracuse University and studied hotel management at Paul Smiths College in New York’s Adirondack State Park and accounting at SUNY Albany.

He also earned several Microsoft certifications and worked as a bank computer technician late in his career. Before that, he taught elementary school music and college philosophy and worked in human resources, serving those with mental illness.

Sherwood and his wife, Cynthia, married in 2004 and had two children. He loved cooking, gardening, backpacking, and canoeing and spent the final eight years of his life as a stay-at-home dad. He died in January 2021 at age 70.

Taavo Virkhaus ’67E (DMA)

Virkhaus was destined for musical greatness. His grandfather, legendary conductor David Otto Virkhaus, is considered the father of Estonian band music—the Estonian Songfest held every four years begins with a parade carrying a torch lit from the eternal flame at his grave. Taavo’s father, Adalbert Virkhaus, was the first professionally trained (in Leipzig, Germany) conductor of the Estonian Opera House.

During World War II, the family escaped Russian forces in Estonia and later Czechoslovakia, spending five years in refugee camps before being welcomed by American forces when the war ended. Adalbert received a job offer in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and Taavo received a full scholarship as a violinist in the University of Miami orchestra.

He earned master of music and doctor of musical arts degrees and served on the conducting faculty at the Eastman School of Music, where he met his wife, Nancy Herman Virkhaus ’70E (MM).

He served as music director and conductor of the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra in Huntsville, Alabama, from 1989 to 2003. Virkhaus always said he was America’s “biggest patriot” and thanked the country for the opportunities it gave him.

He died in February at the age of 86.

Gerry Katz ’70 studied piano at Eastman during his four years on the River Campus and took three music literature classes from Virkhaus (see page 54). He also worked closely with him when Virkhaus conducted professional orchestra for the student productions of Broadway musicals.

“His courses were always totally engaging and fun,” Katz says. “He had a dry sense of humor that you had to pay attention to in order to ‘get it.’

“While I arrived at Rochester with a pretty good music education under my belt already, it wasn’t until Taavo’s courses that I came to understand what defined each of the major eras in classical music and made them different from one another.

I credit him with turning me into a lifelong classical music enthusiast, becoming a Boston Symphony subscriber for more than 45 years now.”