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Bob Gattis
Bob Gattis '70 found his life's work as a raconteur and restaurateur. The two talents coalesced to provide enjoyment for many Old Blues, new Blues, and wannabe Blues for more than 25 years. Bob, owner and founder of Crogan's Restaurants, always entertained generously with food and drink. His largesse included major support for countless charities, the University of California, and friends in need. At Cal, he was a member of Big C Society, Beta Beta, Skull & Keys, Psi Upsilon fraternity, and Pop Kessler's boys. He continued to support University athletics as a Bear Backer. After he died on March 26, more than a thousand people turned out to remember the man at the helm of Crogan's in Montclair.
Bob would have loved the accolades delivered at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, the same church where he married his college love, Anne Simpson '71, nearly 33 years earlier. He was not without his faults: speakers gave testimony to Bob's habitual lateness, disregard for golf rules, and highly embellished story-telling. Friends since college, my husband and I spent many years with Anne and Bob traveling, dining, and fighting over dinner and bar tabs. Bob always beat us to the punch. He was always quicker, always persevered, and always paid. His generosity simply knew no other way. As we walked away from his life celebration at the Orinda Country Club, I reflected on what a grand event it was--just the kind of party Bob would have loved. But this time he couldn't pick up the check. This time we gotcha, Bobby.
--Remembered by
Barbara Hardacre Harrison '70
Leta H. Nelson
A dedicated alumna and consummate volunteer, Leta H. Nelson '59 died at her Lafayette home on March 10. Her considerable contributions to the University include her tenure as a trustee and as the first woman chair of the University of California, Berkeley Foundation (UCBF). She also was a member and chair of the Lawrence Hall of Science Advisory Board and served on both the Botanical Gardens Board of Directors and the L&S Steering Committee.
"Leta was a classy lady. She dedicated herself wholeheartedly to Cal. Even during the last few hours of her life, she was making calls to raise funds for women's golf. We have lost one of the greatest friends Cal has ever had," said long-time friend and fellow UCBF trustee Edward Peterson '58.
She helped guide numerous campus campaigns and distinguished herself as a top Builder of Berkeley donor, a key member of the Keeping the Promise campaign and the Campaign for the New Century, and chair of the Campaign for the Liberal Arts. She co-chaired her Class' 25th-anniversary campaign and assisted with fundraising efforts for the Cal Band and women's golf.
An energetic backer of Cal athletics, Mrs. Nelson co-chaired the 1997 Big Game Auction that raised more than $2 million for athletic scholarships. A member of the Berkeley Fellows, she also was honored with the Chancellor's Award and the UCBF Trustees' Citation.
A member of Kappa Kappa Gamma and Prytanean, she also served as trustee and president on the boards of the Lafayette Elementary and Acalanes Union High School districts, and was a member of numerous community organizations. Survivors include her husband Victor '58; children Cheryl Henrickson, Karen Challinor '87, Kristen Nelson '88, and Patrick Nelson '90; and six grandchildren.
Brian Maxwell
Before he ever came up with the idea for PowerBar, it drove Brian crazy that his athletes would live on pizza, hamburgers, and beer. He showed us how to cook simple, healthy dishes and he was passionate about the idea that something you could eat would improve your performance by one percent. "Think about that," he said. "That's one meter in a hundred-meter race. That's everything!"
Brian Maxwell '75 died March 19 in Ross. He came to Cal in 1971 on a track scholarship, was honored with the Brutus Hamilton Award, and went on to coach the Golden Bears in distance running. He represented Canada in several international competitions, and was part of the 1980 Olympic team that boycotted the games in Moscow. In 1977, was ranked the No. 3 marathon runner in the world. Together, we ran every trail in the hills of Berkeley, some of which he claimed to have created from having run them so many times. That was typical of Brian: if there is not a trail, make one.
In 1987, when Brian began to cook up the prototypes for PowerBar with his wife Jennifer ^88, a runner and nutritionist, it didn't matter too much that we had no experience or money, and there was no market for the product. Failure simply was not an option.
And the effort did not fail. With the success of Powerbar, Brian was able to give back to the University he loved. He supported the renovation of Haas Pavilion and the Academic Study Center, and he underwrote the cost of replacing the artificial turf on Kleeberger Field, now known as the Maxwell Family Field. The name is appropriate: Brian was dedicated above all else to his wife and their six children.
For 24 years, Brian was my coach and my friend. It was not winning in sports and success in business that defined our relationship, but caring, passion, innovation, and just plain hard work. Brian never gave up. It was like running a marathon--he just kept going.
--Remembered by Mike McCollum '85
William Bouwsma
After the towering Renaissance scholar William Bouwsma died on March 2, his former colleague Natalie Zemon Davis spoke for many when she said: "My memories are of Bill in all of his magnificence: wise, deep, humorous, questioning, searching, original."
Bill joined the Berkeley history faculty in 1957, and for the next 35 years he and I shared responsibility for teaching the Renaissance and Reformation. There was a brief hiatus. Bill left Berkeley for Harvard, his alma mater, in 1969, but our department, with the enthusiastic support of the campus administration, lured him back to Berkeley as Sather Professor of History in 1971.
Bill's scholarship focused on the history of European culture in the early modern period. His first book (1957) was a study of a French intellectual of the late 16th century. In 1968, he published Venice and the Defense of Republican Liberty: Renaissance Values in the Age of the Counter-Reformation. In 1988, he published a portrait of John Calvin, a major contribution to the scholarship on that prominent Reformation figure. UC Press, in 1990, issued a collection of Bill's essays, A Useable Past: Essays in European Cultural History. His last book, The Waning of the Renaissance (1550-1640), was published in 2000. This magisterial work surveys the history of Renaissance culture, from its heady origins in the 14th century, through a period of maturity, followed by a reaction and rejection of its basic values.
Commenting on Bill's scholarship, his Berkeley colleague Randolph Starn noted that "his way of thinking about history is grounded rather as a battle is grounded, and the struggle between rival conceptions of the world has remained his constant theme and a source of countless variations." Thomas Brady, who was Bill's replacement in Reformation studies after his retirement, wrote that "since the early 1960s, Bouwsma's writings became widely influential among scholars and graduate students in the general area of Renaissance studies. He explored the relationships between humanist cultural values and public life in the Renaissance, and in his later work meditated on why the ideals of that age seem to be growing less attractive to our own." A longtime friend and colleague, Henry May, offers this assessment of Bill's work: "His historical thought was powerful, complex, and profound. It was quarried, sometimes painfully, from sources that lay deep in his personality and experience."
Bill devoted as much time and energy to teaching as to his research. He taught students at every level, from introductory survey courses of Western civilization to graduate seminars on topics in European cultural history. When he returned to Berkeley in 1971, he developed a new lecture course on the history of Christianity, which attracted literally thousands of Berkeley students and which has become a standard offering in our department. He served on two occasions as chair of the history department, and from 1967 to 1969 was the campus vice chancellor of academic affairs. He was the recipient of Fulbright, Guggenheim, and National Humanities Center fellowships and was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and of the American Philosophical Society. He was chosen president of the Society for Italian Historical Studies and of the American Historical Society. In 1975 he was elected Faculty Research Lecturer by Berkeley's Academic Senate.
William Bouwsma is survived by Beverly, his wife of 60 years, by four children, and six grandchildren.
--Remembered by Gene Brucker, professor emeritus of history
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June 2004
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