Neale Adams
January 8, 2016

Classmates, 

We’re sorry to learn from the college of the death of Lew Rohrbach, a member of the class of 1963.

Lew’s fraternity was Phi Delt. He was an economics major at Amherst, and played soccer. After Amherst, he went into the finance industry, first back at home at Philadelphia’s Provident National Bank, then as a securities analyst. He mostly worked in foreign investment securities.

Lewis Bunker Rohrbaugh was born in Philadelphia on October 28, 1941.He was the son of Dr. Lewis Henry Rohrbaugh and Ruth Elizabeth Bunker. He attended the Westtown Friends School. (Sometime after Amherst he changed his last name to Rohrbach.)

Lew spent some of his career in New England. He lived in Rockport, Maine, and worked in Boston. He also lived and worked for seven years in Worb, Switzerland, outside Bern.

He developed an interest in Genealogy, and wrote or co-authored several books, focusing on the history of Swiss, German, and Austrian immigrants to the American Colonies in the 1600s and 1700s. He also wrote a short guide to Genealogical Research in Switzerland.

Lew married Carol A. Cressman of Rockport in 1980. Recently they have lived on Marco Island, a development south of Naples Florida. He also leaves a daughter, Elisabeth.

Bart Saxbe
January 9, 2016

I'd been in touch with Lew sporadically for years; the last time I actually saw him was when he came to Judy's and my wedding in Ohio in '95. As you probably know, after college Lew was in the army for several years, after which he sold American securities in Japan for a decade. He never needed to work after that, but found his calling as a genealogical researcher, writer, and publisher. He became the world's expert on Swiss emigration to America, and lived in Switzerland for several years while researching there. He became a Certified Genealogist in 1975; and was elected to the American Society of Genealogists, genealogy's honorary scholarly society, last year. His publishing house, Picton Press, was the most respected in the field. Two years ago he donated 11,000 books and journals to the National Genealogicl Society's Collection at the the St. Louis County [Mo.] Library. When he became sick last year, his two goals were to be at his daughter Elizabeth's wedding last fall, and to complete his final five books--he succeeded at both. R.I.P.