The Memorial Wall

Tom Body

Tom Body

September 10, 1949 - December 29, 2021

Thomas Body of Calgary, AB, passed away on Wednesday, December 29, 2021, at the age of 72 years. He was born in Calgary, AB, on September 10, 1949.

Tom is survived by daughters Justine Body, and Angela Body; his grandchildren, Vega, and Felix; and his sister Linda Dustan. Tom was predeceased by his son Alex Body, his parents, Romney and Theresa Body; and brother Robert Body.

In memory of a special man, one of wisdom and integrity, who lived his life with love and respect for his children, grandchildren, and friends. He will forever be in our hearts.

 

Remembering Tom Body

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Michael Richard Clifton

Michael Richard Clifton

October 13, 1952 - December 28, 2021

An astronaut who flew into space without telling NASA that he had Parkinson's disease has died aged 69.

Michael “Rich” Clifford, flew on three space shuttle missions, having chosen to become an astronaut in 1990 with NASA.

According to Space.com, he joined the corps three years after being assigned by the U.S. Army to NASA's Johnson Space Centre in Houston, where he was serving as a space shuttle vehicle integration engineer at the time of his selection.

His death was confirmed on Tuesday by the Association of Space Explorers (ASE), of which he was a life member.

His first flight took place on December 2, 1992, which was a classified mission on the Discovery space shuttle for the Department of Defense.

It was a week-long flight, which conducted medical studies on the effects of microgravity on cells from bone tissue, muscles and blood.

His second flight took place on April 9, 1994, where he became one of the crew operating the Space Radar Laborator.

It was this mission where he flow with his Parkinson's a secret.

However, he wanted to fly once more, and informed NASA's medical staff and his commander ahead of his third mission, in March 1996.

He was monitored throughout his training, but as his symptoms never interfered with his preparations for the tasks he was given the green light to fly.

He returned to Earth on March 31, 1996, and resigned from the astronaut corps and NASA in January 1997,

The California native spent, in total, 27 days, 18 hours and 24 minutes in space while completing 443 orbits of Earth.

He is survived by his wife, Nancy Elizabeth (née Brunson), and their two sons, Richard and Brandon.

 

Remembering Michael Richard Clifton

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Jonathan Spence

Jonathan Spence

August 11, 1936 - December 25, 2021

Jonathan Spence ’65 Ph.D., Sterling Professor Emeritus of History, whose scholarship shaped the field of China studies for half a century, died Dec. 25 at home in West Haven, Connecticut of complications from Parkinson’s disease. He was 85.

President Peter Salovey, noting the community’s loss, called him “unsurpassed as scholar and teacher,” and Richard C. Levin, president of Yale from 1993 to 2013, spoke of him as “a towering figure, a scholar of unique insight and imagination.”

Spence transformed and popularized the study of China in the United States and across the world. Galvanized at first by the idea of China in the 17th century, he went on to write 14 books that spanned the entirety of modern Chinese history, among them “The Search for Modern China” (1990).

His gift was to blend scrupulous archival research with literary flair to create narratives that illuminate the vibrancy of human lives in a foreign land. When he started writing in the 1960s, the American eye was not on China. With a novelist’s aptitude for character, detail, and pace, he brought the sweep of a distant civilization to life. His narrative gift made him what Peter Perdue, professor emeritus of history, called a “master craftsman” who “created a new amalgam of biography, documentary, literature, and drama.”

Born in England in 1936, Jonathan Dermot Spence was one of four children of a family immersed in art, literature, and publishing. He had his secondary schooling at Winchester, where he won the history prize. He did military service for two years in Germany and then went up to Clare College Cambridge, where he coedited the highly regarded literary magazine Granta.

Spence always said he was a “convert” to Chinese history. It was as an exchange student on a Mellon Fellowship at Yale that — after years of focusing on European history — he became mesmerized by a course on China taught by Mary Wright, who had been a student of John Fairbank at Harvard and who had recently arrived at Yale, with her husband Arthur, from Stanford. Wright became Spence’s mentor and introduced him to the distinguished bibliographer and historian Fang Chao-ying, whose support helped him gain access to papers in Taiwan from the Qing dynasty.

“Ts’ao Yin and the K’ang-Hsi Emperor: Bondservant and Master,” Spence’s Yale dissertation and first book, written with the assistance of special access to archival materials in Taiwan, created a nuanced portrait of Ts’ao Yin, the servant, spy, and bondservant to the Manchu emperor. Ts’ao Yin served as a lens for viewing the whole of Chinese society during the dynasty, animated brilliantly by Spence.

This early work, published in 1966, had all the hallmarks of what would follow: fascinating characters, rich use of detail, and an intriguing tale told with a storyteller’s art. In many other books to come, Spence succeeds, as Mark Elliott, a professor of Chinese and Inner Asian history at Harvard and former Spence student, has said, in “demystifying China and the Chinese past, and making it intelligible, relevant and meaningful to people.”

Generations of readers have wept while reading the poignant fate of Woman Wang in “The Death of Woman Wang” (1978) and become caught up in following the dramatic story of the Jesuit priest who set out from Italy to bring Christian faith and Western thought to Ming dynasty China in “The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci” (1984). They have wondered over the fate of the Chinese widower from Canton and the way that his fate illuminated the differences between China and the West in “The Question of Hu” and sympathized with Zhang Dai who spent the second part of his life obsessively recording the texture of the vanished Ming dynasty of his youth in “Return to Dragon Mountain: Memories of a Late Ming.” In all of these books, while telling mesmerizing stories of particular people in particular circumstances experiencing complex and extraordinary events, Spence manages not only to convey a sense of China and its civilization, but also of our place as humans in the world.

Spence’s best-known work, “The Search for Modern China,” developed from the lectures in his celebrated Chinese history course at Yale, begins with the Ming dynasty and covers four centuries. It has been the cornerstone of college-level teaching of Chinese history since its publication. The term “textbook,” however, would give the wrong impression of a masterpiece in which Spence makes the search for China a quest for depicting a complex culture packed with upheaval and personalities.

For generations of students, the “Modern China” course, simply known among undergraduates as “Spence,” was considered a rite of passage for Yalies who heard from one another that it would open their eyes to a fascinating country and civilization and give them a new global perspective. So popular was it that students had to be admitted in cohorts: senior majors in Chinese, Japanese, history, and East Asian studies on day one; junior majors in the same on day two; and everyone else, as far as the room would hold, on day three. Ultimately the university gave up trying to find a classroom and the course was moved to Battell Chapel, which holds 850.

As Janet Chen, now professor of history at Princeton University, describes, “With a single sheet of hand scribbled notes, Spence could hold an auditorium of undergraduates spellbound” with lectures that were as engaging and illuminating as short stories. Another student remarked, he could “catch the essence,” as Spence sometimes himself described it, of people and of historical moments so they “lit up like lightning bugs in a jar.”

Some legendary lecturers achieve greatness through their theatricality. This was not Spence. Slowly, patiently, and in a quiet voice, he fashioned his lectures with narratives as rich as those in fiction, always embedding a larger point about the culture and society of China within them. Students would sit rapt, and then leave the lectures and excitedly discuss them over lunch in the colleges.

It would be hard to overestimate the influence of “Modern China”: from it, students who are now out in the world have gained a deeper understanding of China that has served them as journalists, politicians, ambassadors, teachers, poets, actors, entrepreneurs, and simply as knowledgeable citizens.

As one of the most influential professors of Chinese history in the world, Spence also attracted a distinguished cohort of graduate students who are now contributing to scholarship and carrying on his legacy throughout the academy — from Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia to the University of Chicago, Cornell, Dartmouth, Cambridge, the Chinese University of Hong Kong and many other colleges and universities. Immediately after he died the internet flared with remembrances of him from Chinese scholars and students at distinguished Chinese universities, including Tsinghua and Beida, where Yale has shared a Ph.D. exchange program for graduate students.

For his pathbreaking work, Spence received many accolades. He was a MacArthur Fellow and the recipient of eight honorary degrees, including those from his alma mater, Cambridge, and, in the same year, from Oxford. He was appointed to the C.M.G. (Companion of the Most Distinguished Order of St. Michael and St. George) on the Queen of England’s Birthday Honours List. He served a term as the president of the American Historical Association. In 2010 he was asked to give the Jefferson Lecture, the most prestigious honor the U.S. federal government bestows for achievement in the humanities. At Yale, undergraduates chose him for the coveted DeVane Medal for scholarship and teaching.

A popular figure in a university he loved, Spence was admired not only for his exemplary scholarship, teaching, and dedication to students, but also for his warmth, humility, and integrity. For years he had an office in Timothy Dwight College, where he was a faithful fellow. He regularly attended Yale College faculty meetings, an astute and interested observer of university politics and people. He and his wife Annping Chin, a senior lecturer in history who retired in 2018, entertained many from China and all over the world at superb dinners in their West Haven home, where they also created a beautiful garden.

In addition to his wife, Spence is survived by a brother, Nicholas; two sons from his first marriage, to Helen Alexander, Colin and Ian; a stepdaughter, Mei Chin; a stepson, Yar Woo; a grandson; and two step-granddaughters. 

 

Remembering Jonathan Spence

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Joseph Matthew Serpa

Joseph Matthew Serpa

January 1, 1944 - December 24, 2021

Serpa, Joseph M., 77, of West Warwick, passed away peacefully on Friday, December 24, 2021 after a long struggle with Parkinson's Disease. 

He was the devoted husband of State Representative Patricia A. (Petrarca) Serpa for 36 years. Born in Providence, he was the son of the late Joseph and Dorothy (Silva) Serpa. He was the cherished son-in-law of Constance and the late Adolph Petrarca.

Joseph graduated from Hope High School in 1962 and went on to serve in the Providence Fire Department for thirty-two years, retiring in 1999 as the Dispatch Lieutenant at the Bureau of Operational Control. He was never boastful but Joe was extremely proud of his Fox Point roots and for having been awarded the PFD Badge #1 in 1996 for his dignified and professional service to the residents of Providence.

Joseph enjoyed golf, the casino, music, and old movies. He cheerfully planned and organized annual golf vacations for large groups of fellow firefighters for more than twenty years.

In addition to his wife, he was the much-loved stepdad of Domenic DiMasi and was affectionately called “Papa Joe” by grandson Gabriele DiMasi. He also leaves his sisters and brothers-in-law Lester and Linda Petrarca and Joanne and Robert Diggins. He leaves several nieces and a nephew. We have all lost a good man.

Remembering Joseph Matthew Serpa

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Herve Champagne, Jr.

Herve Champagne, Jr.

June 22, 1934 - December 24, 2021

Herve Urbain Champagne, Jr., age 87, passed away the morning of December 24, 2021 after a battle with Parkinson’s disease.

Herve was born on June 22, 1934 in West Warwick, RI to Herve and Bernadette (Pelletier) Champagne. After graduating from La Salle Academy in 1951 he served in the United States Air Force during the Korean War and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Accounting from Bryant University in 1959. 

Herve retired from his position as Chief of Field Audit for the State of Rhode Island Division of Taxation in 1996 after 28 years of service. He also served on the Supervisory Committee, and later the Board of Directors, of the Rhode Island Credit Union for 30 years, until the time of his death.

From 1971 to 1976, Herve also turned his favorite dessert into a business as the owner of Dairy Jim, an ice cream shop on McElroy Street in West Warwick. The shop included several trucks that traveled routes throughout Kent County, often with one or more of Herve’s children on board.

An avid golfer, Herve also enjoyed trips to Foxwoods Casino, weekly lunches with his best friend Roy LaCroix, meals at his beloved Twin Oaks, and visits from his children and grandchildren.

Herve was well-loved not only by his family and friends but also by the staff at the Green House Homes at the Saint Elizabeth Community, where he spent the final months of his life. He was well known for his jovial, joking manner and the occasional serenade to the staff who cared for him.

Herve is survived by younger brother Robert Champagne and sister-in-law Pauline Champagne of Coventry, son Thomas Champagne of Asheville, North Carolina; daughter Suzanne Champagne of North Kingstown; son David Champagne of Coventry; son Marc Champagne and daughter-in-law Shiela Champagne of West Hartford, Connecticut; and daughter Mary Champagne and son-in-law Geoffrey Gessner of Baltimore, Maryland. He was also the proud Pépère to grandchildren Evan Chaffey and his wife Val Wilkins; Steven, Jessica, and Austin Gibree; Luc and Mathieu Champagne, and Everett and Ah’leah Companie.

Inurnment with military honors in RI Veterans Memorial Cemetery, Exeter.

Remembering Herve Champagne, Jr.

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Joan Didion

Joan Didion

December 5, 1934 - December 23, 2021

The writing of Joan Didion, who has died 87, was mantra-like, mannered, even “set in its own modulations” (that was Martin Amis’s snipe). It was also unique and remarkable. Even the shape of her books was uncommon, the sentences spaced on pages as tall and narrow as king-sized cigarette packets.

She had practiced that incantatory style since her mother had presented her, aged five, with a notebook and a suggestion that she calm her anxious self by writing. Her family had long been settled in California, then chiefly an agricultural state, a location that mattered to Didion’s story, and to her story-telling.

She was born in Sacramento, the daughter of Eduene (nee Jerrett) and Frank Didion, a finance officer with the US army, poker player, and, after the second world war, a real estate dealer. Joan was an army brat on her father’s stations, and her juvenile fantasies set out in that notebook were doomy – death in the desert, suicide in the surf.

The only printed influence on her work she ever cited was Ernest Hemingway, as she had typed out his prose in order to master the keyboard and his syntax: the exact placement of words was the basis of her style as it had been of his. “Grammar is a piano I play by ear,” she claimed. Studying English literature at the University of California, Berkeley, taught her to audit meaning, dissect language and triangulate evidence, and modified her original ambition, acting, into writing as performance.

Didion won Vogue’s Prix de Paris contest in 1956, and was rewarded with a copywriter’s job, dogsbodying with proximity to glamour, in New York, rising to associate features editor over eight years at Condé Nast. She said later that she had been in love with the city’s promise, excited by meeting whoever was in town — models, millionaires, magnates — but had remained an exiled westerner not at home in New York. With a portable typewriter perched on a chair in her almost empty apartment, she wrote a novel about the Californian rivers she so missed.

Those waterways are the real lead in her first novel, Run River (1963). John Gregory Dunne, a staffer on Time magazine and also a self-declared outsider, edited it. They married in 1964, and moved to Los Angeles temporarily, sure that his older brother, the producer Dominick Dunne, would be their entree to screenwriting. That scenario did not quite play out, and both had to turn to magazine journalism for an income.

Didion categorized some of her essays, with their first-person viewpoint and fiction-like fine detail, as “Personals”, but in fact they were about the world as seen by a social and political conservative from the last American generation to identify with adults. A tiny, unnerved and unnerving figure behind vast dark glasses, she was derisive of lax language and dismissive of unformed thought on both the left and right. She did not care to negotiate interviews with stars via their press agents.

She believed she could pass unnoticed anywhere: among the residue of the Hollywood studios and the creatives of the new music business; in arid valley towns and LA’s dustier districts; around the coagulating hippy counterculture in San Francisco. Her descriptions of her crippling social anxiety, her inability to make a phone call to get an assignment under way, did not accord with others’ memories of her taking laps of the room at swelegant parties.

Didion’s first book of collected journalism, Slouching Towards Bethlehem, published in 1968, the year in which she had a breakdown, established her reputation for cool and very slowly became a cult: as the writer Caitlin Flanagan remembered, Didion “had fans – not the way writers have fans, but the way musicians and actors have fans – and almost all of them were female”. That coolness was confirmed by her second novel, Play It As It Lays (1970), with its zomboid leading woman on Hollywood’s perimeter, so chilled a fiction that Didion’s editor, Henry Robbins, called her to ask if she was all right.

Possibly not, but she was getting by. The next year the couple had their first script onscreen, The Panic in Needle Park, and then their 1972 adaptation of Play It As It Lays flopped. Didion’s literary identity became clearer than that of her husband, with whom she shared preoccupations and phrasing, which added edge to their joint 1976 refettling of A Star Is Born to Barbra Streisand’s specifications.

Didion continued the essays, more personal yet, collected in 1979 as The White Album, and developed an idea she had had when trapped by paratyphoid in a hotel room during a Colombian film festival into A Book of Common Prayer (1977), her first fictional engagement with the role and image of the US in Central and Latin America.

At that point all the elements were in play that recurred in her fact and fiction. There was her concentration on the Americas – she had visited Europe and Israel, but disclaimed interest in them – and on the Hispanic influx into the US, which, as a Californian, she was aware of very early. Her books of reportage, El Salvador (1982) - “One morning at the breakfast table I was reading the newspaper and it just didn’t make sense,” she wrote of US press coverage of Salvador’s internal war, and immediately flew there to inspect the body dumps – and Miami (1987), were descriptions of equal and opposite cultural misunderstandings.

She felt that the US political process had become self-contained, exclusive of the electorate and, from the presidency of Ronald Reagan onwards, of reality itself – as depicted in the essays anthologised in After Henry (1992) and Political Fictions (2001) and her occasional 21st century pieces. This perception also fed into her best and most successful novel, Democracy (1984), which could be read as a romance, or – as was also true of her 1996 novel The Last Thing He Wanted – as an exploration of private connections to public power. The political could not have been made more personal.

The greater constant in Didion’s work, though, was the intersection of public and private mood with place – Hawaii febrile in tropical rain, Los Angeles fractious as the Santa Ana winds blew through. Readers came to know the homes she had passed through – the Malibu beach premises on the edge of the fire season burn zone, the “house in a part of Hollywood that had once been expensive and was now described as a ‘senseless killing neighbourhood’”, the Manhattan apartment with the Cy Twombly artwork, plus a travel itinerary of grand hotels.

They became even more familiar with the older California that she kept recalling all the way up to her memoir Where I Was From (2003), in which she finally admitted that her apprehension of her native state had been a misapprehension, an “enchantment under which I lived my life”. It was not the place she had thought it, and it never had been, all the way back to the settlers’ wagon trains and their encounters with rattlesnakes.

By then, she seemed to feel that reality was dispelling all enchantments from her life. The lives of Didion and Dunne had been mostly funded by their remunerative rewrites for the screen, although their joint “implied promise of quality” had been delivered in the adaption of Dunne’s novel True Confessions (1981), and rather less so in a prolonged project, Up Close and Personal, filmed in 1996 as a vehicle for Robert Redford.

They supported each other in public over their career compromises, but there had been fights and near-splits in the marriage. They once holidayed in the Royal Hawaian hotel “in lieu of filing for divorce”, and Dunne left to live alone in Vegas for a while when it was his turn for a breakdown. But it had survived, stronger than a mutual defence pact. Dunne died of a heart attack at their dinner table in Manhattan in 2003, a sudden exit that Didion described in The Year of Magical Thinking (2005), her book of grief and disbelief. It was critically admired for its honesty and clarity, and adapted for the stage.

Didion delayed Dunne’s funeral until their daughter Quintana had recovered from the pneumonia and septic shock that had put her into hospital intensive care. But her recovery was brief and Quintana died just before the book’s publication. Didion and Dunne had adopted the baby on the day of her birth in 1966, and called her after a Mexican state. She became a familiar player in their pieces, often quoted, described as an insouciant user of hotel room service when accompanying her mother on book tours.

In Blue Nights (2011), Didion suggested quite another story of Quintana as a Hollywood child who feared abandonment, was suicidal, diagnosed as manic depressive, and in adulthood had had difficult encounters with her birth family. However, the true subject of Blue Nights was Didion, alone and a long way from California; there could be no going back to places so changed. Her last works, South and West (2017) and Let Me Tell You What I Mean (2021) collected her “field notes” and early writing.

Veronica Horwell

The Guardian 

 

Remembering Joan Didion

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Leonard Overcash

Leonard Overcash

October 14, 1946 - December 22, 2021

Leonard R. Overcash Sr.
Born: October 24, 1946 in Joliet, IL
Died: December 22, 2021 in Joliet, IL
Leonard Russell Overcash Sr., age 75, passed away on Wednesday, December 22, 2021.
Leonard is survived by his wife, MaryFran; sons, Josh (Andrea) Overcash and Rusty (Julie) Overcash; daughters, Paula Overcash, Leann (Rick) Lund, Mary Kelly (Randy) Anderson, Stephanie (Tom) Gajdorus and Libby (Mark) Augustine; grandchildren, Todd, Derrick and Jessica Overcash, Justin, Julia and Mya Ryl-Kuchar, Jeremy and Paige Overcash, Seth (Samantha), Cole (Courtney) and Dylan (Haley) Gajdorus, Jameson (Peyton) Tuneburg, Emily (Daniel) and Grace Anderson, Sophia and Vivian Augustine; great-granddaughter, Makinley Grace Gajdorus; brothers, Ted (Frankie) Overcash of Joliet and Michael (Kay) Overcash of Waco, TX; dearest friend, Frank (Mary) Beggs of St. Anne.
Preceded in death by his parents, Clarence and Anna (nee Erio) Overcash; granddaughter, Samantha Lynn Overcash; and grandson, Noah John Gajdorus.
Leonard retired from Stepan Chemical Company after over 20 years of dedicated service. His grandchildren and great-granddaughter were the light of his life. Leonard was a Civil War enthusiast and was very involved in Civil War reenactments. He will be truly missed by all who knew him.

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Dr. David Patrick Liebel

Dr. David Patrick Liebel

November 9, 1950 - December 21, 2021

Missed by everyone who knew him.

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John Emory Ferrebee

John Emory Ferrebee

April 19, 1943 - December 19, 2021

John Emory Ferrebee, of Kapaa, Kauai, Hawaii, died peacefully in his sleep at home on Sunday, December 19, 2021. His son, Samuda, was at his side. The cause of death was Parkinson’s Disease, which had long affected him.

A son of Dr. Joseph Wiley and Juanita Sault Ferrebee, known to all as Salty, he was born in Boston, MA, on April 19, 1943. In 1948 he moved with his parents, brother, sister, horses and dogs to Cooperstown, where his father worked at the Mary Imogene Bassett Hospital, researching and later developing the now universally used bone marrow transplant. John attended the Cooperstown Central School, and matriculated to the Fay School in Southborough, MA, and then to Millbrook School in Millbrook, NY, where he was captain of both the soccer and the tennis teams. He graduated in 1962 and went on to attend the University of Colorado, Boulder, during which time he opened a motorcycle shop and taught skiing at a local ski area.

In the early 1970s he and his partner, Marcia Hileman, moved to South America, where their son, Samuda John Hileman Ferrebee, was born on October 15, 1972. For several years John owned a sailboat and cruised the coasts of California and Mexico. He then moved to Rancho Santa Fe, CA, to care for his ailing father, who died November 14, 2001, and mother, who died January 22, 2004. He worked at the Santa Anita race track for several years, and at the same time became an avid and very successful day trader. He later moved to Hawaii to wind surf, meditate and continue his trading.

John Ferrebee is survived by his son, Samuda of Mckinleyville, CA, his sister, Anne Ferrebee Keith of Cooperstown, his brother, Peter Wiley Ferrebee of Old Lyme, CT, and his nieces, Alexandra Ferrebee Gehring of Spokane, WA, and Samantha Sault Gehring of Boulder, CO. His brother, sister and nieces will always be grateful to their brother and uncle for taking such exceptional care of Dr. and Mrs. Ferrebee until the day they died.

 

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Johnny Isakson

Johnny Isakson

December 28, 1944 - December 19, 2021

Georgia’s Republican amiable politician Johnny Isakson died on Sunday after being promoted from a legislature to become a US Senator known as an effective behind-the-scenes consensus maker. He was 76 years old.

Isakson’s son, John Isaksson, told The Associated Press that his father fell asleep at his home in Atlanta before dawn. John Isakson said his father had Parkinson’s disease, but the cause of death was not immediately apparent. “He was a wonderful person. I miss him,” said John Isakson.

Johnny Isakson, a millionaire in the real estate industry, spent more than 40 years in Georgia’s political life. In the Senate, he was a tax-deductible architect popular with first-time homebuyers, who said he would help revitalize the struggling home market. As Chairman of the Senate Veterans Commission, he worked to expand the program to provide veterans with more folk medicine options.

Isakson’s famous motto was, “There are two kinds of people in this world, friends and future friends.” Due to that approach, he was very popular among his colleagues.

“Johnny was one of my best friends in the Senate,” Kentucky Republican minority leader Mitch McConnell said on Sunday. “But what’s amazing about him is that about 98 other Senators always felt the same. With his infectious warmth, charisma, generosity, and honesty, Johnny Became one of the most admired and beloved people in the House of Parliament. “

In 2015, Isakson announced that he had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease while preparing for his third term in the Senate. Parkinson’s disease is a chronic, progressive movement disorder that significantly slows walking. Immediately after winning the reelection in 2016, he underwent scheduled surgery on his back to deal with the deterioration of his spine. He often relied on wands and wheelchairs in later years.

In August 2019, Isakson announced that he would retire at the end of the year shortly after falling in his Washington apartment and breaking his four ribs, leaving him with a two-year term.

In a farewell speech in the Senate, he begged for bipartisanism during a fierce division between Republicans and Democrats. He cites a long friendship with Atlanta Democrat and civil rights hero John Lewis as an example of two men who are willing to set aside the party to tackle common problems. 

“Let’s solve the problem and see what happens,” Isakson said. “Most of the people who call a person’s name and point their finger are those who don’t have a solution on their own.”

Lewis, who died last year, paid tribute to Isakson on the house floor in 2019, saying, “We have always found a way to get along and do the right job for people.”

After the speech, Lewis said, “Brother, I’m coming to see you,” and walked to hug Isakson.

From Atlanta, Isakson failed in 1974 with his first bid for an elected position, a seat on the Cobb County Commission. Two years later, he was elected to the Georgia State Representatives and became the only Republican to defeat the incumbent Democratic Party of Georgia. That same year, Jimmy Carter was elected president. Isakson served in the State Capitol and the Senate for 17 years. Always a minority in Georgia’s parliament, boosted by the Atlanta suburban boom, he helped pave the way for Republican dominance in the 2000s. By the end of Isakson’s career, some of those same suburbs were looking back towards the Democrats.

Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said in a statement, “As a businessman and talented retail politician, Johnny paved the way for Georgia’s modern Republican Party, but partisan politics do the right thing. Never disturbed me. “

Isakson suffered a humble setback before being sent to the Senate. In 1990, he lost to Democrat Zelmirer in the governor’s race. In 1996, Guy Milner defeated Milner in the Senate Republican primary before he lost to Democratic Max Cleland.

Many observers chalked the loss to Isakson, who was not tough enough with regard to abortion. In the Primary, Isakson advertised on television and said he would “not vote to amend the constitution to create criminals for women and their doctors” while opposed to government funding and the promotion of abortion.

“I trust my wife, daughter, and Georgian woman to make the right choice,” he said.

He changed his mind about the issues that later became controversial.

Isakson’s jump to Congress took place in 1998 when US House Speaker Newt Gingrich decided not to seek reelection. Isaksson won a special election in 1999 to fill a seat in the suburbs of Atlanta.

He finally arrived in the US Senate in 2004 when he defeated Democratic Denise Madget with 58% of the votes. He served Georgia’s senior senator Saxby Chambris, a close friend and classmate at the University of Georgia.

Isakson was considered an exorbitant early favorite to take over Republican Sonny Perdue at the Governor’s mansion in 2010. But he instead chose to seek a second term in the Senate. While there, he built a reputation as a moderate, but rarely split up with the party in major votes.

He was a major negotiator on immigration law endorsed by President George W. Bush in 2007, but was eventually abandoned after encountering strong resistance from the right. Chambris and Isaksson were booed over their immigrant stance at the Georgia Republican Convention that year.

Isakson supported limited school vouchers and played a major role in developing Bush’s signature education plan, the No Child Left Behind Act. He would also push for a compromise on the politically prosecuted issue of stem cell research, which would also expand research funding, ensuring that human embryos would not be harmed.

The approach to doing that deal is no longer endorsed by many voters, but Isaksson’s pedigree continues to exist in Georgian politics. State Attorney General Chris Kerr was the former Senator Chief of Staff. “When I was young when I was just starting politics, I wanted to be like Johnny Isakson,” Kerr said on Sunday.

Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock said “everything in Georgia” was saddened by Isakson’s death. After defeating Republican Kelly Loeffler in the January final vote, Warnock, who took over Isakson’s old seat, pays homage to the late Martin Luther King, Jr. at the Evernizer Baptist Church in Atlanta. I had a special relationship with Isakson who attended. The pulpit of the church belonged to King and later to Warnock. Warnock also continues Isakson’s tradition of offering an annual barbecue lunch for all Senators.

“The model of public services sets an example for the next generation of leaders in how to make progress on the principle while governing with compassion and compromise,” Warnock said on Sunday.

Isakson graduated from the University of Georgia in 1966 and joined the family-owned company Northside Realty in Cobb County a year later. With over 20 years of command, it has grown to be one of the largest independent residential real estate brokerage companies in the country. Isakson also served in the Georgia Air National Guard from 1966 to 1972.

He was survived by his wife, Diane, who married in 1968, three children, and nine grandchildren.

Remembering Johnny Isakson

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Updated: August 16, 2017