Word reached the College last summer that Tim Dalsimer had passed away on July 10, 2007. At the time of his death, Tim was—as he had been for many years—proprietor of Dalsimer Landscape Associates in Hewlett, New York on Long Island. Nothing is known of the circumstances of his death.
Tim graduated in 1961 with a degree in Fine Arts. He went to high school, and played football, with Terry Farina at Lawrence High School in Cedarhurst, LI, and when the two discovered that they’d both been accepted at Amherst, they decided to room together freshman year. “Thereafter”, says Terry, “although still on good terms, we went in somewhat different directions.” Both of them attended their 50th class reunion at Lawrence High in May of 2006, and spent a little time catching up with each other. Terry observed that Tim was “really beat up physically as he had recently been in a serious automobile accident and was nothing like his former self. You might recall that he was a good-sized and handsome man. Without any first hand information, my speculation is that the automobile accident contributed substantially to Tim’s demise.”
Terry noted that “Tim was a smart and highly creative fellow who marched to a different drummer”, and that trait comes through strongly in the delightful and expansive letter that Tim wrote about himself for our 25th reunion book (Audit 1960) in 1985; classmates who still have that book are urged to go back and read it. Tim refrained from alumni activities for many years, but became quite active in the ‘nineties, participating in Alumni Fund telethons and attending our last three class reunions.
The thing that Tim reported as his “most important personal item” in 1985 was the birth in 1983 of his daughter, Hallie Brenner Dalsimer. I was able to learn that Hallie attended and graduated from Wesleyan—a fact of which Tim must have been very proud—and lives in New Mexico.
Tim was a unique character, and will be greatly missed.
-David V. V. Wood, ‘60