Deceased December 1, 2019
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In Memory
My father, Richard Storer Ward, was born in Beirut, Lebanon, on Oct. 9, 1920. His father, Edwin St. John, class of 1900, was a pediatric surgeon and dean of the medical school at the American University in Beirut. When my father was 10, he was shipped to Massachusetts to continue his education and, like his older brothers Paul ’33 and Philip ’35, attended and graduated from Deerfield Academy and Amherst.
At Amherst, my father found himself taking cover under his bed in South as the hurricane of 1938 struck. He and his classmates spent much of their first weeks helping with the cleanup. He went on to sing in the glee club, pitch for the baseball team and play in the midfield for the soccer team.
After Amherst, my father attended Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City, entering into pediatrics. After finishing his training as chief resident at Bellevue Hospital in 1948, he returned to the university to train as a child psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and, finally, teaching psychoanalyst.
After completing his training, he joined the faculty. In 1960, he was invited to join the faculty at Emory University to help grow the university’s department of psychiatry. The day after they were married, my mother and father moved to Atlanta. For the first 10 years, he shuttled between Atlanta and New York City, teaching students at both places, all the while helping to lay the foundation for what is now the Emory Psychoanalytic Institute.
Considered the “Father of Child Psychiatry at Emory,” my father retired from the university in 1986 and then from private practice when he turned 97 in 2017. He is survived by his wife, Adele, of 49 years; a stepson, Steven; a daughter, Charlotte; a son, Richard ’85; a grandson, Kyle; a granddaughter, Elena; and many loving nieces, nephews and extended family.
Richard Z. Ward ’85