I learned that one of these cousins lived in New Orleans. Unfortunately, he passed as a young man - 51 - in 2002. It would have been great to have family here in NOLA. He was a professor at the University of New Orleans. (I haven't yet located his obituary...)
In any event, the father did medical research and was very highly regarded; I found this obituary about him through his wikipedia page. Interesting because we talked about the happiest places in America are here in Louisiana, where family and a support group makes you happy, not wealth. (Wait, I can't find that study... I thought I had written about it already. I will have to see what I can find and post it!)
Dr. Stewart Wolf Jr., who studied health of Roseto residents, dies at age 91
It was 42 years ago that Dr. Stewart Wolf Jr. took a close look at the people who lived in Roseto, determining their close family relationships gave them an edge to a healthier lifestyle and lessened their chance of having fatal heart attacks.
Wolf, who worked until his mid-80s, died Sept. 24 in Oklahoma City. He was 91.
His 1963 study, which detailed why Rosetans had fewer heart attacks than people in nearby communities, brought him professional praise and brought Roseto international recognition.
His daughter, Angeline Wolf Gloria, and son, Thomas Wolf, have kept their roots in Upper Mount Bethel Township, both living on or near their father's famed research facility on Totts Gap Road.
But the doors have closed at the Totts Gap Institute that Wolf founded in 1958 to bring together the concepts and findings of biomedical and behavioral sciences.
"Father was not able to pass the torch on to a single person who would be able to take charge in the direction he had originally planned for it," Gloria said Friday.
Through his 60-year medical career, Wolf was affiliated with medical, clinical and research departments at the University of Oklahoma, Cornell University Medical School, the University of Texas Medical Branch and St. Luke's Hospital-Fountain Hill.
Gloria said although Totts Gap is closed, its assets were given to the Warren Foundation at the Oklahoma University School of Medicine in Tulsa, Okla.
"They matched 150 percent our contribution, which was about $1.5 million," Gloria said. "It is being used to establish the Stewart Wolf Scholar Trust to benefit a student, doing specific research, for one year."
A couple of years before his death, his daughter said, the Stewart Wolf Endowed Chair was established by the Oklahoma University Health and Science Alumni Foundation.
The Wolf children may not have had a father who played ball with them because of his extensive travel and working hours, but they did not feel deprived.
Gloria said her father was a busy man, who, like his own mother, felt travel was vital to their upbringing.
"His mother took he and his siblings to Europe in the summer," Gloria said, "and he replicated that for us."
When the children were young, Wolf took them; his older brother, George, who died in 2002; and their mother, Virginia, to Paris where they lived for a year while he did his research.
When the children were in their late teens, they took turns traveling abroad with their father for his work.
That is Gloria's legacy from her father.
"One of the most important things our dad taught us was that travel was mind-expanding," she said. "I have held onto that, traveling all over the world in my career."
She and her husband of 15 years, Jim Gloria, have continue the tradition of traveling. They have adopted two children abroad, a son, now 12, from Russia, and a daughter, 8, from the Ukraine.
Gloria, who uses the name Gloria Wolf in her career as a professional dancer, teaches repertory dance theater in Allentown and at Bravo Dance in Scranton, and has taught at DeSales University. Her husband, an artist, teaches various forms of art at their home.
Thomas Wolf, who lives with wife Peggy and son on the Totts Gap property, serves as overseer for the grounds. A photographer, he worked with his father at the institute and in the laboratory as a computer engineer before it was closed.
After Wolf's famous Roseto study, he predicted that Rosetans would change as they became more "Americanized." A later study proved him correct: As residents moved away from their close-knit community, the heart disease statistics matched those of neighboring communities.
October 08, 2005|By Madeleine Mathias Of The Morning Call
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