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John Aboud well-known Tucson attorney
• At 23, he graduated No. 1 in his law class at the University of Arizona.
When he began practicing law in 1939, John Aboud Sr. was one of a handful of lawyers in Tucson.
”October 7th, 1999, marked 60 years as a lawyer and there are darn few lawyers that last that long,” said son Michael Aboud . ”He’s one of the very, very early ones.”
John Aboud died Monday at St. Joseph’s Hospital during surgery for a heart aneurysm.
Mr. Aboud, 84, was born Feb. 29, 1916, in Sonora. He was the youngest child of a pioneer Arizona family that left Lebanon, passed through Mexico and to the United States in the 1890s, Michael Aboud said.
Mr. Aboud practiced law in Tucson for his entire career except for a four-year stint in the U.S. Army during World War II.
One of Mr. Aboud’s most widely recognized cases involved his campaign to get clemency for escaped Arkansas prison inmate Alvin Tyger.
Tyger fled a 10-year sentence for burglary in the late 1960s, assumed a fake name and made his way to Tucson in 1971, where he married, became a father and led a model life. The FBI caught up to Tyger in 1974 and sent him back to Arkansas; he was granted clemency amid intense public and media pressure in 1975.
Aboud received his bachelor’s and law degrees from the University of Arizona. At 23, he graduated from UA law school at the youngest age then allowed, finishing No. 1 in his class.
With sons Michael and John Eli, who also graduated from UA law school, Mr. Aboud formed the firm of Aboud & Aboud in 1970, now Aboud & Aboud, P.C.
The firm represented the Tucson District 1 School Board, now the Tucson Unified School District, in the 1970s.
Mr. Aboud had practiced with his brother, Edward, before forming his own firm.
”Dad always prided himself on being a self-made man, and essentially he was,” Michael Aboud said.
”He helped support the family during the Depression days, and he never let us forget how difficult that was.”
Mr. Aboud was a local tennis standout and, at the age of 12, he began selling and stringing tennis racquets. At 15, he started his own tennis shop and began holding the Aboud Tennis Tournament every summer in Tucson.
Starting when he was a child he gave tennis lessons to, among others, former state Supreme Court Justice Robert Lesher and Si Ganem, Aboud’s nephew, who became the Southwestern Tennis Champion and later one of the most successful tennis coaches in the history of Tucson High School, Michael Aboud said.
”That’s where he made his first nickel,” daughter Shelley Aboud said of her father’s tennis instruction.
And her father was proud of his ability to hold on to those nickels, she said.
Mr. Aboud, who was also a real estate investor, helped support his mother, financed his college education and bought his first properties – three homes near the then Mansfeld Junior High School for $4,500 – with his tennis clinic profits, said Shelley Aboud
Whenever he thought his children were being wasteful with money, Mr. Aboud would remind them that, due to financial obligations, he didn’t taste a soda pop until he was 25.
He worked seven days a week throughout his entire law career, Shelley Aboud said.
”If he wasn’t accomplishing something or learning something, he didn’t feel productive,” Michael Aboud said.
Mr. Aboud’s father, Elias Aboud, a dry-goods merchant and business owner who sold to such notable customers as Pancho Villa, once temporarily served as deputy sheriff of Mammoth, replacing one who was killed.
Elias Aboud died in 1918 when John Aboud was 2 years old.
After his father’s death, Mr. Aboud’s mother, three brothers and one sister struggled financially, eventually selling the family’s businesses: a bar, two pool halls and a general store. Family members came to Tucson after leaving Mammoth and Sonora. John Aboud was in second grade when they arrived here.
”When he came to town, the University of Arizona was on the outskirts of Tucson,” Michael Aboud said.
Mr. Aboud served in the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1946, and established and headed the legal offie at a German prisoner-of-war camp in Trinidad, Colo.
He underwent Army training in Grinnell, Iowa, not far from Cedar Rapids, where he met his wife, Emily, whom he married in December 1942.
The couple recently celebrated their 57th wedding anniversary.
Mr. Aboud was a former president of the Tucson Rod & Gun Club and the American Lebanese-Syrian Club. He was an avid hunter.
He is survived by wife, Emily; two sons, Michael and John Eli; three daughters, Paula, Jean and Shelley; four grandchildren; one great-grandchild; and one niece, Roz Roda.
Visitation will be from 1 to 3:30 p.m. Sunday in the Catalina Room of the Lodge on the Desert, 306 N. Alvernon Way.
The family suggests donations be made to the American Red Cross or the Alzheimer’s Association of Southern Arizona.
(Dated Mar 03, 2000)
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Services tomorrow for Dr. Darwin Neubauer
Memorial services for Dr. Darwin W. Neubauer, who helped develop Tucson Medical Center into one of the premier local hospitals, will be held tomorrow.
Dr. Neubauer died of prostate cancer Tuesday. He was 85.
”I think health care and the practice of surgery and great medicine suffered a loss in the loss of Dr. Neubauer,” said TMC President Emeritus Donald G. Shropshire.
”Even though he was retired at the time of this death, his contributions are longstanding,” he said.
When Dr. Neubauer came to Tucson in 1948, Tucson Medical Center was known as the Desert Sanitarium.
The sanitarium primarily served the needs of patients suffering from tuberculosis, said TMC spokesman Mike Letson.
The portion of East Grant Road where the fledging TMC called home was not much more than a dirt track far outside the city limits.
But Dr. Neubauer and a group of other doctors saw potential in the rural hospital.
At the risk of losing his privilege to practice at St. Mary’s Hospital, the dominant city hospital at that time, Dr. Neubauer, his partner Dr. Ross Magee, and a few others began treating regular patients at TMC, which had become a community hospital.
”It’s because of the efforts of people like him that we have what is now known as Tucson Medical Center,” said his son, Dr. William Neubauer.
”He’s one of the doctors that helped develop Tucson Medical Center into an acute-care center, into a real hospital,” he said.
The elder Dr. Neubauer, a general surgeon, died at the hospital he helped create.
”The circle came around,” said the 56-year-old son, a practicing general surgeon himself who has worked in Tucson for 24 years.
The elder Dr. Neubauer retired in 1981, actively leading the organization of the medical staff at TMC for all the years that he practiced there, Shropshire said.
He was the command doctor during treatment of victims immediately after the 1970 Pioneer International Hotel fire, which killed 28 people.
”He literally rolled up his sleeves to have TMC meet the changing conditions,” Shropshire said. ”He gave us, I think, very clear clinical leadership during those years.”
TMC’s resident surgeons, who are at the last step before being able to go into private practice, considered Dr. Neubauer a mentor, said Shropshire.
”He was very much a teacher at heart,” Shropshire added.
Dr. Neubauer was one of the first doctors in Tucson to use chemotherapy, his son said.
He developed a way to directly deliver treatment into tumors with a continuous pump.
Dr. Neubauer, who specialized in cancer treatment, was a founder of the Arizona division of the American Cancer Society.
”Even though he was a surgeon, he really was a leader in cancer programs in the city,” Shropshire said.
Dr. Neubauer created Arizona Medicine, the first medical journal in the state, serving as its editor in chief from 1955 until 1963, and once served as president of the Pima County Medical Society.
In the 1950s, he oversaw medical aspects of the Civil Defense Committee for both Pima County and Arizona.
At different times during his career, he served as chief of surgery at TMC, St. Joseph’s Hospital, St. Mary’s Hospital, Pima County General Hospital (which was replaced by Kino Community Hopsital), the now-defunct Sante Fe (railroad) Hospital, the former University Infirmary, at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base and at Fort Huachuca.
He also was chief of staff at TMC, St. Joseph’s Hospital and Pima County General Hospital at various intervals.
”He was just well-known and well-respected,” his son said.
Dr. Neubauer was born in Highland, Ill., on July 13, 1914.
He graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in 1935 and was a valedictorian at the Washington University Medical School in 1939.
He and his wife, Virginia, were wed in St. Louis in 1937. The couple recently celebrated their 62nd wedding anniversary.
Dr. Neubauer received his surgical training at Barnes Hospital in St. Louis. He was an Air Force flight surgeon from 1942 to 1946, serving in the European and North African theaters.
Dr. Neubauer is survived by his wife, Virginia; son William, daughters Susi Osborn of Phoenix and Jan Neubauer of Tucson and six grandchildren.
Memorial services will be held tomorrow at St. Mark’s Presbyterian Church, 3809 E. Third St., at 1:30 p.m.
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to TMC Hospice or the Boys & Girls Clubs of Tucson.
(Dated Feb 25, 2000)
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Service for historian Altshuler March 12
A memorial service is scheduled March 12 for Constance Wynn Altshuler, acknowledged authority on Arizona Territorial and pre-Territorial military history and author of four books and numerous papers.
Mrs. Altshuler, 91, died Feb. 11 of respiratory failure after a long illness.
The service will be held at noon at the Fort Lowell Museum, 2900 N. Craycroft Road.
Mrs. Altshuler said in a 1991 Citizen interview that her Army research was a labor of love.
”I fell in love with the Army long ago. Army language is formal and elegant and precise. To a higher headquarters, you ‘ask authorization.’ To a parallel headquarters, you ‘request concurrence.’ To a subordinate headquarters, you ‘invite comment.’
”All those niceties of language, this appeals to me.”
David Faust, curator of the Arizona Historical Society’s Fort Lowell Museum, knew and worked with Mrs. Altshuler for several years.
”We (researchers) stand on the shoulders of past historians who have led the way for major references. Our work can’t go on without people like Connie. She left excellent resources that allow current historians to do their work,” he said.
Lori Davisson, retired research historian with AHS and longtime friend, said, ”She was a very, very good friend for so many years, so generous with everybody with research, willing to help anyone. Professionally, she always took time to encourage people and share her work.”
L. Boyd Finch, Tucson author and historian, said, ”Number one, she was a lady, in the old-fashioned sense. She was a painstaking researcher, very generous with her knowledge and her sources. That’s not always true (with others).
”She did not suffer fools lightly. Nobody, in the last two decades, at least, has done anything approaching what she did in Arizona military history.”
Her books included ”Cavalry Yellow and Infantry Blue,” ”Starting With Defiance: Nineteenth Century Arizona Military Posts,” ”Chains of Command: Arizona and the Army, 1856-1875,” and ”Latest From Arizona: The Hesperian Letters, 1859-1861,” based on dispatches from Ohio newspaperman Thompson W. Turner, who had come to Arizona for his health.
His dispatches were published in a now-defunct newspaper, the St. Louis Republican.
Mrs. Altshuler was born Oct. 4, 1908, in Chicago. She attended Chicago Normal and the University of Chicago, where she earned a bachelor of philosophy degree in 1927. She earned a master of philosophy degree at the University of Michigan in 1939.
From 1934-42, she lived in Detroit, where she worked as a statistician for the Detroit Diabetes Association, as a newspaper reporter and as a free-lance writer for such publications as Colliers, Ladies Home Journal and Mademoiselle.
On March 4, 1934, she married Dr. Samuel Altshuler, a Russian-born immigrant who came to the United States as an infant.
Mrs. Altshuler earned her pilot’s license in 1943, a year after her husband entered the Army. The couple lived in Cambridge, Ohio, until 1944, when Dr. Altshuler was transferred overseas. At the end of World War II he served as chief of medical services at a military hospital in Frankfurt, Germany.
She joined him there as a civilian staff officer.
The couple moved to Tucson in 1948, and Dr. Altshuler was named chief of professional services at the Veterans Administration Hospital here. In 1955, he began exhibiting the symptoms of early onset of Alzheimer’s cerebral sclerosis and entered the VA hospital in Los Angeles. He died there in 1963.
Mrs. Altshuler studied history at the University of Arizona from 1948-49 and developed a keen interest in Arizona history, which led to her research and books.
She was fluent in French and Spanish and was a member of Alpha Kappa Delta sorority. She was a founding member, in 1980, of the Adobe Corral, Tucson chapter of Westerners International.
She received awards for her work from the Arizona Historical Society in 1982, from the Arizona Hall of Fame in 1987, from Gov. Rose Mofford and from Company B of the 8th U.S. Memorial Infantry, which named her ”official” company laundress – the only way a woman could be made part of a memorial company.
Mrs. Altshuler is survived by a nephew, Fred Altshuler of San Francisco, and a niece, Barbara Rose of San Jose, Calif.
(Dated Feb 25, 2000)
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‘Sad Sack’ artist Fred Rhoads, who also drew for the Tucson Citizen, dies at 78
• His creativity helped his work flourish after World War II.
Former Tucsonan Fred Rhoads, a cartoonist who made a lifetime out of a Sad Sack’s plight, died Saturday in South Carolina.
He was 78.
Mr. Rhoads’ family decided to discontinue life support Thursday after his four-year struggle with Alzheimer’s disease.
For 23 years, Mr. Rhoads penned the ”Sad Sack” comic books, an exaggerated look at a World War II GI trying to cope with a civilian’s life.
Mr. Rhoads also worked for the Tucson Citizen as an editorial cartoonist in the 1980s and early 1990s.
”He loved to draw,” said his wife Mattie, from their home in Greenville, S.C. ”The kids and I were just along for the ride.”
Mr. Rhoads worked with ”Beetle Bailey” creator Mort Walker, Jimmy Hatlo’s ”They’ll Do It Every Time” and Fred Lasswell, who created ”Snuffy Smith.”
”He was just a great guy to work with,” Lasswell said in an interview yesterday from his home in Tampa.
Mr. Rhoads was born in 1921 in Shamokin, Pa.
He studied art illustration in New York City 1940-42, when he entered the Marine Corps in 1942.
Lasswell and Mr. Rhoads met during World War II, when they worked as artists for the U.S. Marine Corps magazine The Leatherneck.
Lasswell recalled how they would stay up late, razzing each other about this and that – stuff like: Whose hometown was bigger and whose hometown was smarter.
In 1947, he met Mattie Louise Poston at a party in Greenwood.
”I thought he was kind of handsome and he was very well-mannered,” Mattie Rhoads said.
After the war, Mr. Rhoads and Lasswell collaborated on ”Snuffy Smith” until 1954, when Mr. Rhoads was given the option of resuscitating the ”Sad Sack” figure into a comic book for Harvey Features Syndicate out of New York City.
It was a tough time for the war-era comic figures.
”They all became very famous and they all had civilian breakdowns,” said David Folkman, co-publisher of the cartoon magazine Hogan’s Alley. ”Just like civilian life for a lot of GIs was difficult.”
”Sad Sack” was actually created for Yank Magazine by cartoonist George Baker. Baker hired Mr. Rhoads to ”take it to the next level” Folkman said.
In an interview with Hogan Alley writer Craig Schutt last summer in Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, Mr. Rhoads talked about how he was able to make ”Sad Sack” a peacetime success.
”George Baker wasn’t as good at doing the comic book as he was at the strip because he was used to drawing for men in the service,” Mr. Rhoads said. ”His humor tended to be more dirty. More sexy. And that didn’t work as well in the comic book.”
Mr. Rhoads and Mattie were married in 1948 and bounced around from South Carolina to New York to Tampa and eventually to Tucson, where they made their home.
Mr. Rhoads went on to do legal battle with Harvey Comic books for five years, suing to recoup a share of the profits his efforts on behalf of the ”Sad Sack” comics earned.
Mr. Rhoads claimed in court to have worked in ”servitude.”
A Pima County Superior Court ruling gave him $2.6 million. That judgment was reversed in the Arizona Court of Appeals.
”It really took a lot out of him,” his wife said. ”He just thought it was unfair.”
In Tucson, Mr. Rhoads was a member of St. Philip’s in the Hills Episcopal Church.
Last summer, Mr. and Mrs. Rhoads moved back to South Carolina to be with Mattie’s family.
The one thing missing from Mr. Rhoads’ life, his wife said, was his own strip.
He had one in The Leatherneck called ”Gizmo and Eight Ball,” but it didn’t survive the war’s end.
(Dated Feb 22, 2000)
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