Robert Waugh Henderson ’41

Bob died Feb. 21, 2004, after a long bout with Alzheimer's.

A New Trier HS graduate, he majored in politics at Princeton, was a member of our ROTC contingent, was active in the Westminster Society, joined Court Club, and roomed with Jim Stone.

Bob was commissioned in the Field Artillery just after graduation. In 1942 he was shipped to Hawaii, and then saw action on Saipan, Tinian, Leyte, and Okinawa, serving as a captain and commanding the headquarters battery of the 225th Field Artillery Regiment.

Released from the Army in 1946, Bob studied for the ministry at McCormick Theo-logical Seminary, and by our 10th reunion, was pastor of the Congregational Church in East Derry, N.H. Continuing his studies, he earned a PhD from Harvard in 1959.

However, by 1958 Bob had joined the Dept. of Religion at the U. of Tulsa, becoming chairman of the department before accepting emeritus status in 1990. A sabbatical in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1964-65 turned him into a Europhile, and he returned for a second sabbatical in 1974-75.

Bob's first wife, June Elizabeth Whamond, predeceased him. In 1978 he married Belva Lou Pascoe, who survives, as do his children, Robert James and Judith Lynn Abernethy; his stepchildren, David and Scott Dickman, Amy Gray, and Deborah Henderson; three grandchildren; and eight step-grandchildren.

The Class of 1941