Losses Faculty, Staff, and Friends
Dr. Stuart Friebert was a poet, translator, and professor. He earned a BA at Wisconsin State College/Milwaukee and an MA and PhD at the University of Wisconsin/Madison in German language and literature. Dr. Friebert taught German at Mt. Holyoke and Harvard before arriving at Oberlin in 1961. In 1975, he founded Oberlin’s Creative Writing Program, which he directed until his retirement in 1997. Dr. Friebert also cofounded the poetry periodical FIELD, the FIELD Translation Series, and Oberlin College Press. During his career, he published 15 books of poems, 16 volumes of translations, and four books of prose. He died on June 23, 2020, survived by his wife, the writer and emerita creative writing faculty member Diane Vreuls, two children, and one grandchild. A Memorial Minute for Dr. Friebert will appear in a future issue of this magazine. n Dr. Joanna Frueh was a prolific author and professor of art history at Oberlin and numerous other institutions, most notably the University of Nevada, to which she devoted 20 years, as well as the Rochester Institute of Technology and the University of Arizona. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Sarah Lawrence College, followed by a master’s in history of culture and a PhD in art history from the University of Chicago. In the 1970s, she was director of Chicago’s Artemesia Gallery, one of the first women’s galleries. Her first published work appeared in The Feminist Art Journal in 1976, and she went on to forge a trailblazing career that addressed issues of sexuality and eroticism head-on; at the heart of all her writing was the notion that the mind and soul are one with the body. Her latest book, Unapologetic Beauty (University of Minnesota Press, 2019), examined the beauty, sensuality, and wisdom of aging women. She received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Women’s Caucus for Art in 2008. Dr. Frueh died February 20, 2020. She is survived by her spouse, Kathleen Williamson. n Laura Marie Gobbi ’91 earned a master’s degree in art history from New York University and enjoyed a wide-ranging career in the arts, the environment, and higher education, including serving as executive director of the Oberlin Alumni Association. She was OBERLIN ALUMNI MAGAZINE 2020 FALL/WINTER
assistant vice president of alumnae relations and institutional giving for Mills College, a museum scientist at the University of California, Berkeley; director of donor relations and events at the Smithsonian Institution; and most recently director of donor engagement at the Nature Conservancy. Ms. Gobbi studied and spoke Italian and French, played the flute, wrote poetry, painted with watercolors, and was an adept student of the natural world, especially birds and butterflies. She served as the president of the board of directors for the Golden Gate Audubon Society, the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the National Audubon Society, earning the designation of Master Birder through the California Academy of Sciences. She died June 13, 2020, survived by her wife, Victoria Clarke. n Bob Jones was the college’s director of security between 2000 and 2008. A graduate of Lorain County Community College, the National FBI Academy in Quantico, Va., and the Southern Police Academy in Louisville, Ky., Mr. Jones began his pioneering career in law enforcement as a dispatcher for the city of Oberlin. He became a patrol officer in 1967 and was named Oberlin’s chief of police in 1980, a position he held for two decades before retiring. Mr. Jones served on the Community Foundation of Lorain County board, was past president of the Oberlin NAACP, past president of the Oberlin American Legion, and was involved in Leadership Lorain County. He was also a member of the 100 Men of Lorain County program, helping to mentor boys at General Johnnie Wilson Middle School in Lorain. He died on May 5, 2020, and is survived by his wife, Claudia, four children, and seven grandchildren. n Dr. Fredrick Davis Shults ’54 was an Oberlin professor and athletics coach for whom the college’s soccer field is named. As a student at Oberlin, he participated in soccer, baseball, and basketball, serving as captain of the soccer and baseball teams as a senior and earning All-America honors in soccer. He followed his Oberlin education with a doctorate of physical education from Indiana University before returning to Oberlin in 1960 as assistant professor in the Physical Education Department for Men. He obtained tenure status in 1964 and became a full professor in 1981. Dr. Shults made the case that the physical education major was a vital part of a liberal arts curriculum. In
campus debate over whether physical education should continue at Oberlin, he strongly urged policies to upgrade the quality of the program. He was a pioneer in his emphasis on ethics in sports, and he developed the nation’s first course in sports sociology. As a coach, he led Oberlin’s varsity soccer, junior varsity basketball, and varsity lacrosse programs. His achievements as an Oberlin student athlete and coach were acknowledged by his induction into the Oberlin Heisman Club Hall of Fame in 1992. Dr. Shults retired from Oberlin in 1994. He died June 8, 2020, leaving his daughter, Jennifer, son Jeffrey, and two grandchildren. He was collaborating on a book about the history and importance of Oberlin athletics at the time of his death. A Memorial Minute for Dr. Shults will appear in a future issue of this magazine. n Dr. Edith Evans Swan advised Oberlin students on independent courses of study and taught a class on Native American literature as associate dean for student academic affairs. In addition to her work at Oberlin, she served as a professor of anthropology at Grand Valley State College in Michigan and as an administrative fellow at Evergreen State College in Washington. She earned a BA from Bennington College, a master’s degree from the University of Arizona, and a PhD in cultural anthropology from the University of Massachusetts. She retired in 1996 and settled in Durango, in her native Colorado. There she reunited with Alta Begay Ellsworth, a friend who had served as her Navajo/Diné interpreter for an undergraduate field study in 1959. Together they recorded 70 extensive interviews, and Dr. Swan told the story of Ms. Ellsworth’s life in the 2018 book Making Selves Women: Life and Times of a Navajo Woman (Ellsworth & Swan). Dr. Swan died May 3, 2020. She leaves her husband, Jerry Muth; two children; four grandchildren; and five step-grandchildren.
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Edith Shakin Katz had a distinguished, multifaceted career. Before her retirement, she was a program consultant involved with international business programing for the Council on International Educational Exchange. Ms. Katz was a lifelong learner and was known for her parties, where the price of admission was often a poem or story. She threw her last soirée in the first week of March before the pandemic made in-person 59