Deceased January 16, 2016

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50th Reunion Book Entry


In Memory

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William Bergstrom '42.PNG

William Bergstrom, 95, died Jan. 16 in a hospice in Danvers, Mass. William was born in Bay City, Mich., and attended the Albany (N.Y.) Academy and Binghamton (N.Y.) Central High School. At Amherst he was a member of the Lord Jeffery Amherst Club and was active in the Outing Club (four years), the Pre-Medical Club (three years) and Phi Beta Kappa (senior year). (During college summers he took classes at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Mass.)

Graduating from the University of Rochester Medical School in 1945, he began a long career in pediatrics and research, including decades of teaching pediatrics at Upstate Medical University in Syracuse N.Y.; research posts in Boston; and traveling with medical teams to Algiers, Brazil and China. Bergstrom worked with colleagues and students on more than 40 research papers and presentations during a lengthy research career, authored a chapter in the Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics and in the 1960s initiated and ran fully staffed clinics to care for children in migrant worker camps in upstate New York. He was married to Charlotte Stuart Bergstrom for almost 72 years; they raised four children, and lived for 60 years in Manlius, N.Y., until retiring to Danvers, Mass., in 2012. He is survived by his wife and four children—William S. Bergstrom of Rutledge, Pa.; John S. Bergstrom of Boston; Mary Linn Bergstrom of San Diego; and David B. Bergstrom of Deposit, N.Y.—as well as five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

Richard S. Ward ’42

50th Reunion

After graduation, I went to medical school at the University of Rochester in the ATSP program. In 1944, I married Charlotte Stuart; we have four children and four grandchildren. After internship and two years of residency training at the University Hospitals of Cleveland, I spent four years in pediatric training, one at the Massachusetts General Hospital, one at Syracuse University, and two at the Children's Medical Center in Boston. Since 1952, I have worked in the pediatric department of the State University of New York Health Science Center in Syracuse, where I'm presently professor emeritus of pediatrics and adjunct professor of biochemistry. From 1955 to 1957, I was Chief of Pediatrics at the USAF Hospital in San Antonio.

Between 1954 and 1960, I was a Markle Scholar; this and several grants from the National Institutes of Health enabled me to establish the laboratory in which I still work. I have written approximately forty papers and text chapters, chiefly on various aspects of calcium metabolism, and hope to continue this enterprise indefinitely. My permanent interest in research stems in large part from the teachings of Professors Doughty, Grahame, Plough, Schone, and Heathers. My most gratifying professional experience was the establishment and operation of a teaching clinic which for many years provided pediatric care for the children of migrant agricultural workers in central New York.

Professors Whicher, Atkinson, Eastman and Morton enhanced my interest in reading, and I still take courses in literature when time permits. I'm an amateur naturalist, a frequent fisherman, and an occasional hunter. I do some logging at our country home in the Catskills, and use the resulting hardwoods for cabinetmaking in my workshop. My wife and I have made many trips to Britain and the continent, and I have taught and practiced pediatrics in South America, North Africa and China.

 

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William Bergstrom