Jack M. Zimmerman ’48
Jack died July 23, 2023, at age 96, after several months in hospice care, an end-of-life option that he helped bring to the United States.
A graduate of the Salisbury School, Jack earned his degree with honors in biology in June 1949. He was a member of Elm Club and received the 1870 Sophomore English Prize. From 1945 to 1947, he served in the Army in the Pacific as an infantry leader and subsequently as a surgical technician. Jack’s Princeton ties ran deep, as his brother Edward was in the Class of ’44 and his daughter, Anne Zimmerman Morgan, is in the Class of ’79.
Jack spent his professional career as a surgeon. He completed his medical training and residency at Johns Hopkins University and became board-certified in general and thoracic surgery. His long medical career included serving as chief of surgery at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Kansas City, followed by 32 years as chief of surgery at Church Home and Hospital in Baltimore and as associate professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins.
Jack, who noted in our 50th-reunion yearbook that he had developed an interest in the palliative care of the mentally ill early in his career, “considered his greatest achievement to be his role in bringing hospice care to the U.S.,” according to the memorial from his family. While on sabbatical in London, Jack had visited St. Christopher’s Hospice, the first hospice in the world, and was inspired to open one of the first hospices in the United States at Church Home and Hospital. He was the author of Hospice: Complete Care of the Terminally Ill.
Jack married Doris Lockett Perkinson in 1953. She survives him, as do their children Anne and her husband Walter Morgan III ’78, and J. Wickham Zimmerman and his wife Allison. He also is survived by five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
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Gary Scharff ’74
4 Days AgoA Model of Courtesy, Respect, and Intellectual Rigor
I am a member of the Class of 1974, a religion/philosophy major and a proud political liberal. As a lawyer with a background in philosophy and political theory and a master’s in religion, I hold Edmund Burke, some other conservatives, and the rule of law in high regard. I also hold my own conservative philosophical convictions related to public order and the sacred role of the engaged, respectful citizen blessed to live in a constitutional democracy.
Shortly after Mr. Trump lost the 2020 presidential election two Trump-supporting alumni formed in 2021 the “Conservative Princeton Association,” an online discussion group maintained by the University. It came to serve as a “home” for MAGA adherents and others bringing their increasingly pro-Trump conservative views to the community of Princeton alumni. Many of the folks who joined the CPA had sharp objections to what they saw as the “woke” tone of university life.
I joined the CPA and, clarifying my pro-liberal and pro-conservative views, I hoped to learn about and digest others’ pro-Trump convictions and, where appropriate, respectfully challenge them. Some CPAers who disagreed with me were uncomfortable and at times even hostile toward both my views and my participation. This was of course a hard time to engage in political disagreement. While many CPAers were serious and careful discussants, some were harsh, a few hoping to expel this dissonant voice. The organizers, to their credit, would not permit any effort to expel me despite harsh feelings and their own discomfort.
Along the way I encountered Dr. Jack Zimmerman. He exhibited grace and warmth toward me and was a model of courtesy, respect, and intellectual rigor, sharp as a tack in his early 90s and a delightful conversant. We had our own multiple side conversations that meant the world to me, in part because I sensed Jack’s finding, even celebrating, his enjoyment of tense, serious engagement around the duties of citizenship in the face of disagreement.
May this lovely man rest in peace.