Sheldon joined our class from Sioux Falls, S.D., where his father owned a scrap yard. At Princeton, Sheldon wrote a thesis on the Indian banking system and economic growth, ate at Campus Club, was an active debater and officer in Whig-Clio, and lived with 11 roommates in Little.

A resident of Chicago’s Old Town neighborhood and a vibrant participant in the city’s social scene, he had been with Schiff Harden since graduation from Northwestern’s law school and a one-year clerkship with the Illinois Supreme Court.  

“He had this incredible intellectual capacity,” a corporate counsel told the Chicago Tribune. “He knew every bit and piece of every statute, and he was able to see the humor in certain situations. He could also make things fun.” Sheldon said he became an environmental specialist because he was the firm’s only Sierra Club member when it took an environmental case.  

Sheldon loved satire and the ironies of life, and passionately pursued his hobbies: bird watching, hiking, skiing, hunting, and theater.  

The class shares its sorrow with his marvelous wife, Bobbi; his sons, Andrew, Douglas, and Robert; and his brother, William ’58.

Undergraduate Class of 1963