The Dartmouth community lost three of its most long-standing and prominent members last month. Dr. Thomas C. Chalmers, Churchill P. Lathrop and Daniel Marx, Jr. '29 all died over winter break.
Thomas Chalmers
Chalmers, 78, died of prostate cancer on Dec. 27 at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, Dr. John W. Rowe of the Mount Sinai Medical Center told The New York Times.
Chalmers was both a member and the chairman of the DHMC's board of trustees.
He was the president of Mount Sinai hospital in New York and dean of its medical school from 1973 to 1983. There he established the first medical school geriatrics department, according to The New York Times.
Chalmers also taught at Tufts University School of Medicine and lectured at Harvard Medical School.
Churchill Lathrop
Lathrop, 95, died on Dec. 21. Known as "Jerry" at the College, he was a professor of art history and directed the College's galleries for decades.
Lathrop began his 48-year stay at Dartmouth in the College's art department in 1928. That same year he founded the Sherman Art library with a grant from the Carnegie Corporation.
He then chaired the art department for 10 years and directed the galleries at the Hopkins Center for the Performing Arts.
After retiring in 1966, Lathrop returned to the College from 1972 to 1974 to again chair the art department, and he also served as acting director of the College's galleries.
Even after his affiliation with the College officially ended, Lathrop stayed in the community for many years.
"Everybody in the art departments are really saddened by the news," said Art History Chair Jim Jordan.
"He was a guiding light for many years, notably the years when the museum was in Carpenter Hall," Jordan added.
Lathrop brought contemporary art, applied arts and photography to the College's curriculum, which, "at the time he began his career, rarely made mention of living artists," according to a College News Service press release.
"If one looks at the development of the collection in the 1930s, '40s and '50s, one can see that Jerry's acquisitions were focused in large measure to contemporary art, works of art that have proven to be historically important," said Timothy Rub, director of the Hood Museum.
Lathrop joined then-Art History Chair Artemas Packard in 1932 to launch the celebrated artist-in-residence program. The two brought Mexican artist Jose Clemente Orozco to Hanover that year.
"I got to know Lathrop personally and spent a good deal of time talking to him over lunch about the museum," said Rub.
"Having been here for nearly 10 years, I've met a lot of alumni," Rub said. "It is remarkable how often he was mentioned in how he instilled in the young men a love of the arts and of museums."
Daniel Marx Jr.
Marx, 87, died of natural causes on Dec. 23. An alumnus of the College, Marx returned to his alma mater as a professor, and had a distinguished 30-year teaching career.
Marx was a professor of economics at the College from 1941 to 1970, and chaired the department between 1957 and 1963. He also chaired the College's international relations program from 1957 to 1963. He taught at the Amos Tuck School of Business Administration from 1960 to 1970.
"He believed very much in President [John Sloan] Dickey's new direction, his increasing emphasis on the professional development of the faculty and the primacy of the professional capabilities of the economics staff," Economics Professor John Menge said of his colleague.
Among his many career accomplishments, Marx helped implement the Marshall Plan in 1949, acting as a special assistant to Ambassador Averell Harriman in Paris, according to a Dartmouth News Service press release.
"Marx always had a great sense of loyalty to the institution," Menge said.
