Deceased April 20, 2022

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In Memory

Tony Alonso died in Tampa on April 20, 2020. Tony, the first Amherst student Dick Weisfelder ’60 met, was “incredibly personable, friendly and interesting!” His freshman and sophomore roommate, John Boettiger ’60, remembers the lively Tony, who with his brother Miguel “Mickey” ’59 “regularly returned to campus from Puerto Rico with bottles of strong rum and Lindy’s cheesecake picked up in New York City.” Charlie Holland ’60 described the rum as “high octane, requiring lots of Coke to get it down.” Like John and Charlie, Tony and Mickey were both members of Psi Upsilon.

Tony’s contribution to our 25th Reunion book told the fascinating story of his trajectory through Yale Medical School, an internship at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital and a residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital where he specialized in ear, nose and throat medicine. After two years in the U.S. Navy, Tony began teaching otolaryngology at Thomas Jefferson College of Medicine. His subsequent career involved teaching and research at the Washington University School of Medicine and in the new medical school at the University of South Florida and also private practice. His publications made him a leading scholar, explaining surgical innovations he had pioneered. These brought him speaking engagements and surgical demonstrations throughout Latin America, facilitated by his being wholly bilingual.

Charlie Holland ’60 explained why Tony refused to participate in our 50th Reunion. Mickey, also a physician, had died prematurely in 1999. Tony found it too emotionally difficult to return to the place where he and Mickey had shared the intellectual and social elements of college life for three years. So thereafter, Tony no longer joined our Reunions or maintained close contact with classmates.

Tony promoted warm family relationships and is survived by his wife of 50 years, Irma Robert; by his children, Robert and Aileen; and by his grandchildren, Liliana and Jose.

John Boettiger ’60, Charlie Holland ’60 and Dick Weisfelder ’60