August 14, 1997
Ellery H. Clark Jr., 87, a retired naval professor and author of baseball biographies, died Aug. 4. in Boston. He was a professor of English and naval history at the U.S. Naval Academy and coached the track team there for many years. He wrote three books on the Boston Red Sox, published between 1979 and 1982. He also penned biographies of Cy Young, Tris Speaker, Lefty Grove, Joe Cronin and Smokey Joe Wood.
Mr. Clark also won a gold medal in speed walking at the Senior Olympics in Springfield in 1995. His father, who won two gold medals in track in the 1896 Olympics, took him to his first Red Sox game in 1918, the last time the team won the World Series.
John M. Taxin, 91, chairman of the Old Original Bookbinder's restaurant who defended the honor of Philadelphia with cheesecakes, died Sunday. He owned the restaurant for more than 50 years and played host to celebrities from show business and politics.
He was a Philadelphia booster who would write or call anyone who spoke negatively about the city. He would then send the "misguided soul" a cheesecake.
Joseph H. Farris, 75, a West Virginia state lawmaker and a broadcaster for four decades, died Sunday at a convention in Philadelphia.
Mr. Farris, a Democrat, was elected to the House of Delegates, the legislature's lower house, in 1990. He successfully sponsored a bill that allows children under age 13 to testify in court by way of closed-circuit television. Mr. Farris also worked as a broadcaster at WCHS-TV and WCHS-AM for four decades. He was chairman of the West Virginia Sportscasters Association and director of the Charleston Press Club.
Nicholas J. Hoff, 91, a professor emeritus of aeronautics and astronautics at Stanford University who pioneered the study of aluminum fuselages in commercial jetliners, died Aug. 4. An aeronautical engineer, he was among the first to examine the static and dynamic stability of the fragile aluminum skins of jets under the stresses of air resistance and heat.
He was born in Hungary and studied engineering in Zurich and designed planes in Hungary before moving to Stanford in 1939 for graduate studies. He received a doctoral degree in 1942 and began teaching at the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn. In 1957, Stanford asked Mr. Hoff to return to create an independent department of aeronautical engineering, which he helped shape into one of the country's top-ranked. He retired in 1971.
George Rauenhorst, 85, a pioneer in the development of hybrid seed corn and a founder of the Trojan Seed Co., died Saturday of heart and kidney failure in Olivia, Minn.
He had attended the University of Minnesota in the late 1920s but was unable to stay long enough to graduate because his family couldn't afford it. With what he had learned and a 2-pound bag of seed corn that the university was testing -- he returned to his family's farm in Renville County.
He and his brothers began selling the new variety and founded the Trojan Seed Co. in the 1930s.
Pub Date: 8/14/97
