John Legerwood Patterson Jr. ’35

Jack Patterson, born in Roanoke, N.C., raised in Richmond, Va., and graduated from the Gilman School before attending Princeton, died in Richmond on Sept. 15, 2000. So far, a path not that dissimilar from others in '35. But then Jack's life path changed. "He married medicine when he left Princeton, says his sister, Elizabeth P. Williams, his closest survivor. "He never thought of anything else in his entire life."

Jack received his MD from Virginia Commonwealth U.'s medical college in 1939, did his residency at Johns Hopkins, and became a research fellow at the U. of Virginia. Next came a stint in the Navy, where he did early space research, and time on the faculty of Emory U.'s medical school. In 1953, Jack went back to Richmond to join the MCV faculty.

His mind and boundless energy flourished there. Early on, his studies ranged from the cardiorespiratory physiology of giraffes to a new approach to treating human head injuries. He founded both MCV's cardiopulmonary laboratories and research division and set up its respiratory therapy facility and intensive care unit. In later years he focused on the genesis of breath sounds and quantitative sound analysis. "He received many honors, opened up whole new avenues in pulmonary research," says Dr. Edith Hardie, his longtime lab assistant.

The Class of 1935