Deceased October 26, 2023
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In Memory
In November, the Class of ’67 and Beta Theta Pi lost a beloved classmate. Jon was known as “Si” through high school and college.
His family roots go back to Ellis Island and to Eastern Russia before that. He was raised on Long Island before attending Amherst.
Si was beyond “well-liked,” a quiet leader both on the basketball court and in his fraternity.
He completed med school (School of Medicine, State University of New York at Buffalo), an internship (Cambridge Health Alliance) and residency and returned to Amherst environs to practice medicine at UMass, a position envied by his friends.
He could have become a prosperous urban physician anywhere he chose. But he headed west to spend 52 years as the proverbial “country doctor” in Placerville, Calif., a small, underserved community that embraced him and his wife, Penny, and later his children, Evan, Alex and Julia and held them close for decades.
A brief 2012 article about Si can be found online.
The Betas, Class of ’67