1930s
Arthur Digby Hengerer ’35
Arthur Digby Hengerer ’35, a gynecologist who was one of Hamilton’s oldest living alumni, was born in Buffalo, N.Y., on May 16, 1913, the son of Augustus Hengerer, M.D., and the former Effie May Digby. A graduate of the Nichols School in Buffalo, he came to Hamilton as a colorful character: The Hamiltonian noted: “just look for a brilliant red jacket, and there he is.”
On the Hill he participated on the track team, served as a manager for the football squad and led the Interfraternity Council as its president. A member of Delta Kappa Epsilon, the young man known as “Art,” “Dig” and “Hengie” continued to stand out from the crowd after graduation. Having focused his studies in biology and chemistry, he attended Cornell University Medical College, earning his M.D. in 1939. While undergoing medical training in Rochester, N.Y., in 1940, he met the former Janet Stewart, whom he married in August 1941. They were devoted to each other for 73 years until her death in 2014.
Dr. Hengerer completed his internship and residency in Albany, N.Y., in 1943 before serving as a captain and flight surgeon in the U.S. Air Force in the Pacific theater in Guam. In 1946, he returned to Albany, where he began his practice in gynecology, specializing in cancer surgery. He spent 42 years in the state capital before relocating to Delmar, N.Y., where he continued to practice medicine until his retirement in 1988.
Throughout his career, -Hengerer was active on many local and state medical committees and boards. He was an instructor, professor and co-chair of the OB-GYN Department at Albany Medical Center and later designated clinical professor emeritus. He received the first Educator of the Year Award from Albany Medical College in 1978, and an award for proficiency in gynecological surgery is given each year in his honor. In 1991, the Child’s Hospital Foundation honored him with its Humanitarian Award.
Having once remarked that he remained indebted to his alma mater for preparing him for all of his life’s activities, Hengerer served on the Hamilton Alumni Council, eventually becoming its chairman, and was an alumni trustee from 1968 to 1974 and a trustee of Kirkland College from 1974 to 1978. In his 50th reunion yearbook he noted, “Bob McEwen [College president from 1949 to 1966] asked me to chair a committee to study the medical services needs of the College, and the committee recommended full-time medical services. This was accomplished, and I served as chairman of a Medical Advisory Committee for both colleges from then until 1978.”
An avid golfer and tennis player, the devoted family man known as “Bump” to his grandchildren enjoyed spending summers with his crew at Echo Lake in Kents Hill, Maine.
Arthur D. Hengerer, who kept a large picture of the Hamilton campus hanging over his bed, died on Feb. 10, 2016, at the Eddy Village Green at Beverwyck Community nursing home in Slingerlands, N.Y., where he had lived for the past 22 years. He was 102. He is survived by three sons, a daughter, 14 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren.
David Seely Burgess ’36
David Seely Burgess ’36, a chemist, was born on Sept. 3, 1917, on a dairy farm in Pawling, N.Y., a son of the former Emma Frick and Alfred W. Burgess. On College Hill he majored in chemistry, served as a class officer and earned election into Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi before graduating as class valedictorian.
Burgess pursued his Ph.D. in physical chemistry at Brown University, earning his degree in 1940 at the age of 23. During World War II, he worked at the Naval Research Labs in Washington, D.C. He met and married Evelyn Margaret McKenzie in 1943.
In 1947, the Burgesses moved to Arkansas, where Dave taught chemistry at the University of Arkansas. In 1952, he began work with the Bureau of Mines in Pittsburgh as a chemist, specializing in combustion and mine safety. His work involved investigating and testifying about explosions, and he was extensively published by the bureau and in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. “This ushered in the happiest phase of my professional life,” he noted in his Hamilton 50th reunion yearbook. “I fell in with a group of research people and enforcement people who were dedicated to improving health and safety in the American workplace.”
Burgess left the bureau briefly in 1962 after he and Evelyn divorced, and he worked for a time as manager of the physics department at Thiokol, a company that specialized in rocket and missile propulsion systems in New Jersey. It was there he met and, in 1963, married Tess Van Dok. He returned to the Bureau of Mines, retiring in 1979.
Dave and Tess traveled extensively — to Japan, Israel and Egypt — and enjoyed hiking in Canada and the United States. The couple settled in Sun City, Ariz., in 1980. Burgess developed a passion for genealogy and scoured church records in England and Switzerland to create family charts. He also volunteered for the Sun City Prides, at the Food Bank and with Reading for the Blind, and played golf. Among his proudest memories was shooting a 72 on his 72nd birthday. David and Tess spent their last years at retirement communities in Peoria, Ariz. She died in 2011.
David S. Burgess died at age 98 at his Desert Winds Assisted Living home in Peoria on May 29, 2016. He is survived by two daughters and one grand-daughter. Another daughter predeceased him.
