Rear Adm. Albert H. Stevenson ’36
Rear Adm. Albert H. Stevenson ’36, of Baltimore, a Bailey Prize winner who became a distinguished environmental and sanitation engineer with the U.S. government and who enjoyed rugged travel adventures, Dec. 28, 2008. He was 94.
Stevenson, born in Brooklyn in 1914, served as an environmental and sanitation engineer for native Alaskan and American Indian communities, as well as, on several international assignments. In addition to his public sector efforts, he worked in private sector engineering and, later, as an engineering consultant. His volunteer efforts in professional societies and local civic agencies spanned 70 years.
Stevenson earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from Union and a master’s degree in sanitary engineering from Harvard University in 1937. At Union, he was a catcher and co-captain for the baseball team and two-year member of the football team. He was sports editor at the Concordiensis and a member of the Psi Upsilon fraternity. In 2006, the College gave him a Gold Alumni Engineering Award.
Stevenson began his career as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps in 1941 and served there for 30 years, retiring as a rear admiral.
Also in 1941, he married Alexandra Korsmeyer. The couple went on to have three children, Albert Frederick, Merril and Alexandra.
In 1954, he was promoted to the rank of captain and transferred to the headquarters of President Harry S. Truman’s Federal Civil Defense Administration in Battle Creek, Mich. There, he served as the agency’s chief sanitary engineer and was involved in the Yucca Flats study to determine the effects on utilities from detonation of atomic weapons.
In 1956, Stevenson began his assignment with the Indian Health Service in what would be the period of growth of engineering and environmental health programs for the Native American and Alaskan native people. Among his accomplishments in his service during a 10-year period, was his work in facilitating the implementation of the Indian Water Supply and Sanitation Facilities Act of 1959. The resulting “self-help” program was largely responsible for the rapid reduction of the infant death rate and enteric disease burden among both groups.
In 1963, as chief of the environmental sanitation branch of the Division of Indian Health for the U.S. Public Health Service, he won the Meritorious Service Medal for leading an environmental sanitation program.
Stevenson was promoted to assistant surgeon general, with the rank of Rear Admiral, in 1966 and served as the chief engineer of the Public Health Service Corps., a post he held until 1971. As chief engineer, he carried out a variety leadership tasks including global assignments in Vietnam, India, Mexico, France and Japan.
In the early 1970s, Stevenson joined Malcolm Pirnie Engineers as vice president for international operations, which involved him in major environmental engineering projects in Egypt, Iran, Jordan and Kuwait. He retired once more in 1984 to work as an independent consulting engineer.
In 1992, he spent two weeks in Antarctica to visiting atmospheric research stations. In the late 1980s, he made a three-week trip to Nepal and Kashmir, which included hiking, rafting and a safari. He avidly pursued interests in current domestic and foreign affairs, duplicate bridge, competitive croquet and dancing.
Edwin “Ted” W. Scantlebury ’41
Edwin W. Scantlebury ’41, of Pompano Beach, Fla., a Delta Phi fraternity member and World War II and Korean War veteran who flew 640 aircraft carrier missions as a U.S. Navy pilot, Dec. 5, 2008. He was 89.
Scantlebury was born April 23, 1919, in Utica N.Y. He was the son of Paul and Dorothy Scantlebury and lived in Albany and Schenectady. His father died in 1937 after a car he was riding in fell through ice at Fish Creek in nearby Saratoga Springs. The father and a friend were ice fishing prior to accident.
Scantlebury graduated from Union in May 1941. He joined the Navy V-5 Aviation Cadet Program in June 1941. He soon got his wings and was part of many carrier battles in the Pacific, making 640 flights off their decks. In one battle, he was shot down and endured four days in a one-man life raft before being rescued by an American submarine.
He retired as a Navy commander in 1962 after serving as a fighter pilot for 20 years on several aircraft carriers.
Scantlebury was a member of the Navy flight demonstration team that became the Blue Angels. In a September 1996 Schenectady Gazette story about a Blue Angels air show, Scantlebury discussed his time flying prop-engine F8F Bearcat airplanes with the group that became the Blue Angels.
In the story, he said: “We didn’t even have a name then [1945]. We were just flying exhibition when they added the name Blue Angles. It was because one of the guys went to the Blue Angel nightclub in New York, came back and said he had a great name.”
The Navy sent Scantlebury to graduate school in Monterey, Calif. in 1948 and to George Washington University in 1956 and 1957 for an MBA.
He then served as comptroller at Jacksonville Naval Air Station in Florida. After retirement, he joined Southland Corporation, owner of 7-11 stores, as real estate manager, selecting hundreds of sites for new stores in four states. He retired in 1980.
Scantlebury was active in boating and served as commodore of The Quansett Point Yacht Club in Rhode Island, Jacksonville Sailing Club and several others.
He established a scholarship fund at Union and Bethune-Cookman University, in Daytona Beach, Fla. He received an Alumni Gold Medal for exceptional service to the College in 1991.
In a ReUnion questionnaire completed in the early 1960s, he wrote: “I believe the four years at Union were responsible for maturing me at an earlier age and were greatly responsible for an orderly transition into the responsibilities of mature life. Union’s well-rounded curriculum has a lasting effect on its student body.”
Scantlebury is survived by his wife, Phyllis Beekman Scantlebury and his two sons, Edwin “Ted” Scantlebury, of Santa Cruz, Calif., and Edwin “Ned” Scantlebury, of, Cape Coral, Fla. and two daughters, Judy Schultz, of Longwood, Fla. and Heather Harris, of Merritt Island, Fla.
Alfred A. “Pat” Knopf Jr. ’42
A brash yet skilled Bailey Prize winner who, as a student, became editor of The Idol magazine and who, after service in World War II, followed in his father’s footsteps by forming Atheneum Publishers. He died Feb. 14, 2009. He was 90.
As editor of the Idol, Knopf was not content to preside over a provincial undergraduate magazine, according to the Encyclopedia of Union College History. During his two-year tenure he streamlined the layout, used connections with his father, Alfred A. Knopf Sr., to get subscriptions from literary luminaries like Willa Cather, H.L. Mencken and Bennett Cerf, and tried to produce a magazine that would not embarrass him in their eyes. That included analysis of national politics analysis and some campus reporting, which was largely critical of then-President Dixon Ryan Fox.
He left Union for the U.S. Army Air Corps in 1942. There, he trained pilots before taking up lead pilot duties on a B-24 bomber unit based in England. He earned a Distinguished Flying Cross for his work in the 446th Bomb Group in the Eighth Air Force and rose to the rank of captain before returning from the war in 1945.
As the only child of the publishing giants, he joined the family’s publishing firm and worked there until 1958, when he formed Atheneum. He formed the publishing house with editors Simon Michael Bessie and Hiram Haydn and $250,000 from investors.
According to a New York Times obituary, the newly formed publishing house enjoyed early success with three bestselling books. The Last of the Just (1960), a novel about the Holocaust by André Schwarz-Bart; The Making of the President, 1960 (1961), the first in Theodore H. White’s series on presidential campaigns; and The Rothschilds: A Family Portrait (1962) by Frederic Morton.
After several years of success, Atheneum merged with Scribner in 1978 and was by 1984 acquired by Macmillan Inc. Knopf led the adult books divisions of Scribner’s houses as a senior vice president before retiring in 1988.
He is survived by his wife, Alice Laine, and their three children, Alison Insinger and Susan Knopf, of New York City, and David A. Knopf, of San Francisco.
Dr. William A. Knight III ’68
Dr. William A. Knight III ’68, of St. Louis, world-renowned breast cancer scholar and educator, March 16, 2009. He was 62.
Knight earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry at Union and received his medical degree from St. Louis University School of Medicine in 1973 and completed a three-year internal medicine residency with St. Louis University Hospitals in 1975.
He dedicated his medical career to understanding the causes of and caring for those afflicted with breast cancer, starting with medical oncology fellowship training at, respectively, M.D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute in Houston and, later, the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio.
During his years on faculty in the Oncology Division at the University of Texas, he became a world-renowned breast cancer scholar and educator, conducting and publishing landmark research on, among other topics, the estrogen receptor as an independent prognostic factor for early recurrence of breast cancer.
Among many significant professional accomplishments, he is an emeritus member of the American Society of Clinical Oncology and holds a patent for oncology treatment methods. In 1989, Good Housekeeping magazine honored him as one of the best breast cancer physicians in the United States, according to an obituary published in the Suburban Journals newspaper near St. Louis.
After 11 years at Texas University, he returned to St. Louis University in 1986 as the director of the Division of Medical Oncology and professor of medicine.
Four years later he joined his father, Dr. William Knight Jr., in private practice in St. Louis. He returned again to San Antonio in 2000, where he practiced until his retirement in 2005.
Throughout his life, he loved music and was skilled in playing piano and guitar. His family considered him an expert chef and considered his prowess on the grill unmatched.
He will be missed by his wife, Dr. Gerlyn Friesenhahn and his children, Dr. William A. Knight IV, Dr. Ryan M. Knight, Andrew P. Knight, Andrea Megan Knight, Nathan R. Reisdorph and Jeremy C. Reisdorph.