Page 57 - Alumni Horae: Vol. 93, No. 1 Fall 2012

57
DECEASED
The section was updated October
13, 2012. Please note that deaths
are reported as we receive notice
of them. Therefore, alumni dates
of death are not always reported
chronologically.
1934—Guy Gerard Rutherfurd
May 27, 2012
1935—Earle Taylor “Apple” Holsapple Jr.
May 4, 2012
1938—Edward Crozer “Ned” Page Jr.
September 2, 2012
1939—George Sturgis Pillsbury
October 13, 2012
1940—Douglas Dunn Donald
October 1, 2012
1940—Andrew Bartlett Jones
May 9, 2012
1940—Eliot Brown Payson
September 2, 2012
1941— John Gilman “Smokey” Ordway Jr.
May 23, 2012
1942—George Wright II
May 14, 2012
1943—Donald Murray Culver
June 28, 2012
1945—Willmott Harsant “Bin” Lewis Jr.
September 10, 2012
1945—Belford Arlington Richards
April 29, 2012
1945—Donald Phelps Welles Jr.
April 5, 2012
1946—Stockton Avery Andrews
July 31, 2012
1946—David Luke Hopkins Jr.
May 23, 2012
1946—Frank Fremont “Monty” Reed II
September 26, 2012
1947—Richard Levering Hilliard
August 7, 2012
1947—Edward Clinton Stebbins
August 29, 2012
1949—Samuel McClay Yonce
September 18, 2012
1958—Lee Willing Patterson
June 29, 2012
1960—Oliver Hoagland Keep
March 8, 2012
1960—Leighton Chapman Atteberry
June 18, 2012
1970—Robert Luther Edens III
July 10, 2012
Former Faculty
Gail M. MacMillan
May 21, 2012
David Kent Silhanek
May 2, 2012
Former Staff
Ann Louise Locke
July 8, 2012
1931
Oliver Morton Langenberg
who still bounded
up the stairs to
his sixth-floor
office in St. Louis,
Mo., well into his
eighties, died on
March 28, 2012.
He was 99 years
old and had spent
most of his life in
St. Louis as an investment broker, civic
leader, and generous benefactor.
Born in that city on May 16, 1912, to
Harry Hill and Alice Morton Langenberg,
he entered SPS in the fall of 1926, follow-
ing his older brother Henry of the Form
of 1927. He suffered at first from home-
sickness, which was soon cured, and then
throughout his years at SPS from what
doctors diagnosed as rheumatism. Despite
his periods of infirmity, he was widely
appreciated as a “bright, cheery com-
panion,” according to the Rector, and was
active as manager of the Delphian track
team, oarsman for Halcyon, and member
of the Missionary Society, Radio Club, and
Scientific Association. After graduation
in 1931, he went to Princeton, his father’s
alma mater, receiving his AB in philosophy
in 1935.
Mr. Langenberg initially joined his bro-
ther at Smith, Moore & Co., a brokerage
firm in St. Louis, and then went to Mal-
linckrodt Chemical Works, where his job
included managing a small foundation
the company had set up. He married Jean
Schock in 1946 and they had two children.
That marriage ended in divorce in 1959,
and in 1966 he married Mary E. Booth
Polk, gaining a stepson. By then, he was
at A.G. Edwards, which he joined in 1961
after being recruited by his squash partner,
Presley Edwards, son of the founder of
the company. As senior vice president for
institutional sales, he made frequent trips
to Europe to promote St. Louis’s top com-
panies, including Monsanto, McDonnell
Douglas, and Anheuser-Busch. In London,
Mr. Langenberg gained a reputation for
developing the business on a shoestring.
Rather than paying the high long-distance
rates at his hotel to call the home office
or cold-call prospective clients, he would
take a pocketful of shillings to the pay
phone at the post office and call from
there, inserting coins every three min-
utes. When asked, he said he was calling
from the office.
A wiry 5 ’ 6 ” and 150 pounds, Mr. Lan-
genberg was an active tennis and squash
player and runner. When the Olympic
torch passed through St. Louis en route
to the 1994 Games, he carried it for a
segment on behalf of A.G. Edwards. He
eventually had to give up on tennis, but
refused to play golf, which he considered
“an old man’s game.” Every summer for
50 years, he took three weeks off so he
and his wife could attend the Chautauqua
Institution in upstate New York.
Mr. Langenberg was said to have a great
eye for stocks. A 1998 St. Louis Business
Journal article headlined “Ollie Still Is
Picking the Winners” divulged his philos-
ophy of investing: look at companies, not
stocks; consider management first, then
track record and growth prospects. Thir-
teen years later, when he was 98, he still
went to the office every day and had
about 1,000 clients and no plans to retire.
His legacy is visible in his hometown:
the Langenberg Fitness Center at St. Luke’s
Hospital, the Langenberg Gallery at the
Saint Louis Art Museum, and endowed
chairs at Washington University and the
Donald Danforth Plant Science Center.
His extraordinary philanthropy and service
on boards extended to nearly every area
of civic life. With his wife, he strength-
ened the Art Museum’s Asian collections,
especially Japanese prints and paintings,
which he had loved since his college days.
In 2010, a headhunter from New York
recruited Mr. Langenberg, who politely
declined, explaining that he had signed
a six-year contract in 2007, but perhaps
the recruiter could call him back in 2013,
when he would be 101.