In Loving Memory of

David Mayer Solzman February 28, 1934 - February 19, 2018

Memorial Service Rockefeller Chapel

5850 S. Woodlawn Avenue, Chicago, Illinois Friday, May 11, 2018

1:00 pm

David Mayer Solzman

A Life Well Lived David M. Solzman lived his life as a Renaissance man. From his early youth his interests were multifaceted and kaleidoscopic in nature. The entire world and universe were of interest to him. David was in constant motion.

David was blessed with a loving family. His father Isel Solzman came from the plowed fields of the family farm in Council Bluffs, Iowa and his mother Pauline Ephraim came from the small southern town of Plaquemine, Louisiana where her family owned a dry goods store. David’s parents moved to Omaha, Nebraska where David and his brother Michael were brought up in the Jewish faith. Respect for all, understanding, and kindness were instilled in them at an early age.

At age 5, David’s mother Pauline guided him to the sky by showing him how to find the constellations. Thus began his lifelong passion for astronomy. He knew the names of all the stars and where to find them. By his early teens, The Omaha World Herald was frequently printing short news clips about the Lad who gets his telescope out to view the sky from his back yard.

The Solzman family believed strongly in education and for David this approach was ideal. There was always something new to learn. His intellect was amazing and his curiosity endless. At the tender age of fifteen, following his sophomore year in high school, David left home to attend the University of Chicago. His absorption of knowledge and desire to share that knowledge with others was paramount. And share he did. Numerous teaching assignments filled the ensuing years.

David’s love of the sky would land him a position as an astronomer at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago from 1962-1971. He also taught astronomy at the University of Illinois at Chicago from 1965-2000. He inspired his students to “Look up at the Sky.”

His passions in life also included music, family life, photography, hiking, being truly present with people, and service to his community.

David began playing the piano at age 8 although he didn’t meet his real piano teacher, Margit Varro, until much later in life. David could be accused of hero worship and Margit was definitely one of those heroes. She was his musical muse. It was a rare day that David did not sit at his Steinway and fill the house with classical music. He recorded much of his music over the years, often sending tapes of his music to friends. In his last years, he took on a major project to collect the best of those recordings and convert them to digital media. He compiled a set of 9 CDs of his life’s musical production. What a wonderful remembrance gift.

David was proud to serve his country as a Naval Officer. And, while he was in Officer Candidate training in Rhode Island, David started dating Mary-Alice Koplik (Bamboo). They married in 1959 and moved to his home town, Omaha. In 1962 they welcomed their first child. Nancy was born on the same day John Glenn was orbiting the earth. A real dilemma for an astronomer. David brought a portable TV to the hospital.

The family moved back to Chicago where David studied for his PhD at the University of Chicago. Their daughter Andrea was born in Chicago in 1963. In 1966, David completed his PhD in urban geography focusing on industrial land use along the Chicago River and the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal.

David’s young family traveled extensively. In 1973, as he was beginning a sabbatical, the family went to East Africa. In keeping with his astronomy roots, they went for a total eclipse of the sun and camped out in the path of totality.

While on sabbatical, David joined two other UIC professors on Hornby Island in British Columbia, Canada where their families lived together in one house (14 people and guests). They decided to start a cooperative community. They recruited eight families who shared 80 acres of land. With his tool box and help from friends, David built a cabin for his family on the island. The Syzygy community, founded in 1974, is still thriving and several of the original families are still part of the community.

David was blessed with a beautiful granddaughter, Ariella, whom he loved dearly. They shared jokes and mischief. When she started college and was missing home, he told her a story about being a fifteen year old, alone in Chicago, and seeing lights come on in people’s homes as evening began. He told her he imagined being there with them in the warmth of the lighted homes and felt less alone.

David was a popular and award-winning teacher at the University of Illinois-Chicago where he taught urban geography from 1965-2000 in the Departments of Geography and Anthropology. He earned awards for Teaching Excellence from Amoco Corporation and the Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching at UIC. His most prized awards were his twenty three nominations and 5 Silver Circle teaching awards given by the graduating seniors. He took pride in the fact that the Silver Circle award came from his students. His students loved him. One student summed it up nicely when she wrote, “I really, really, really, really, enjoyed your class…” After retirement in 2000, David continued to teach in the Honors College of the university until 2016.

David was an active participant on the Board of Directors of The Friends of the Chicago River for a total of twenty-three years until his retirement from that position in 2013. His fellow Board members could always count on David to stand up at the end of a meeting and give a speech about looking at the big picture and sticking to principles.

Lectures were not limited to classrooms and Board rooms. In addition to private cruise tours, David gave acclaimed seven-hour lecture-cruises of the Chicago waterways for the University of Illinois-Chicago and the University of Chicago. In 2013, the Graham School of General Studies at the University of Chicago celebrated more than forty years of these lecture-cruises with the presentation of a Distinguished Service Award. He literally wrote the book on the Chicago River. He authored “The Chicago River: An Illustrated History and Guide to the River and Its Waterways,” published by the University of Chicago Press and featuring 85 of his photographs. His devotion to his subject was captured in a feedback evaluation by a guest on one of his cruises – “the day was blustery and rainy. The lake was turbulent. Some fell out of their seats. Some got so seasick they had to get off. Some stayed below. Some weathered the elements. Mr. Solzman was incredible: he stayed above, got soaked, fell over once, but never missed an enthusiastic beat. His talk was amazingly extensive and well organized. I truly admire his strength and love for Chicago and its waterways.”

David appeared in several documentary films, most notably “Chicago Drawbridges,” and served as a resource for the book of the same title by Patrick McBriarty (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2013). David was the perfect person to interview for a film because any interviewer, whether it be for a newspaper story seeking a quick quote or a panel discussion, never needed to give David much prompting. He was always ready to perform his art. His art being that of a wordsmith. He could express his thoughts beautifully.

Although professionally he was an academic, he also had his share of business ventures enjoying a highly varied career. After service as a naval officer in the Pacific in the 1950’s, he returned to his home town of Omaha where he served as Vice-President of a manufacturing firm, built a planetarium for Omaha, devised an adult board game about the stock market called “Ticker Tape’, and taught an innovative course in astronomy for parents and children at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. He also partnered with his dear friend Victor Zaveduk to start SpaceTime Tanks Enterprises in 1981, a relaxation center offering sensory deprivation tanks and massage therapy.

Much like his father Isel, David loved photography. He started with a Brownie box camera as a child. He later filled several file cabinets with slides before graduating to digital. He was thrilled to participate in the noted City 2000 project in Chicago as a freelancer. The project involved a group of photographers who took on the task of documenting the people and places of Chicago in the millennial year. He reveled in being a part of the project, meeting the other talented photographers, and dashing around the city taking photos. His small photographic business was appropriately named “The Affectionate Eye” for he truly loved the scenes he captured with his lens. He took countless images of the beauty of his beloved city and the world in which he traveled. His images grace books, corporate advertising, calendars, posters and CD covers as well as appearing in permanent collections of major corporations. Most recently the David Solzman Gallery of 50 plus photographs was permanently installed in the offices of The Friends of Chicago Parks. He was always thrilled to share his images; wanting his friends to see the beauty captured by the camera.

David’s interest in competitive sports was more as a fan and not a player. But he did love climbing mountains and hiking trails. His parents first took him to the YMCA in the Rockies when he was 7 years old. He fell in love with the mountains. Pitching a tent in Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado was his home away from home. He went to his mountains every year. As any traveler knows, photography and travel go hand in hand and David loved both. One of David’s all- time favorite photographs is of his daughter Andrea sitting in a field of Colorado wild flowers with her dog Sunshine.

David traveled extensively around the United States and overseas. He saw himself as an adventure traveler. So when his good friend Lila Bishop invited David and Rachel to join a group on a trek through Nepal in the Everest Region he was ready to pack his bags. He was 68 years old at the time. What could be better than an adventure in the high mountains?

David connected up with his hiking partners every year in Colorado to share the beauty around them. In recent years, David selected a place in the high mountains where he wants his ashes scattered. And in keeping with his love of the heavens, on the way home from his last trip to Colorado in 2017, he camped in Alliance Nebraska to view an awesome total eclipse of the sun.

Mid-life, David found his Rachel. Two souls who were meant to be together. Love is reflected in love. They shared forty years of conversations and jokes together. He wrapped her in his web of family and community of friends. Their love is not a quiet private affair. It is tangible even to casual observers. It is the quality of love that endures. And like David’s love for Rachel, we find he leaves us knowing that life is blessed. Thank you David, for sharing a life well lived.

Anticipating the eventuality of death, David wrote this in a love letter to Rachel:

“Our love was foreordained when the idea of the universe appeared. And the beauties, toils and travails and explosive endings of giant stars conspired so that their remembered beauty should be eventually conjoined and remembered in us and in our love.

So I cannot feel that even this eventuality has extinguished the light of our love. I feel that it still shines out like starlight lighting the universe. And I cannot but feel that it will shine always and that our conjoined spirit will continue to be carried on the evening breeze and in the beauties at the heart of flowers, music, dried grass, rain clouds and fragrant smoke.”

WHEN I HEARD THE LEARN’D ASTRONOMER by Walt Whitman

When I heard the learn’d astronomer, When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them, When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, Till rising and gliding out I wandere’d off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars. David carried this poem in his wallet and would recite it frequently.

Memorial Service Program

Musical Prelude (Grazioso from Four Seasons), A. Vivaldi………………………Organist Tom Weisflog Welcome……………………………………………………………………………………………....Andrea Goldberg (daughter) Opening Remarks: Graham School…………………………………………………………Dean Chris Guymon Psalm 121: I Lift My Eyes to the Mountains…………….…………………………..…Sara Beth Koplik (niece) Ave Verum Corpus, W. A .Mozart………………………….…………………………..…..Organist Tributes from Colleagues and Aficionados

Friends of the Chicago River……………………………………………………….Margaret Frisbe SpaceTime…………...........................................................................Victor Zaveduk The Affectionate Eye…………………………………..………………………………Lise McKeen University of Chicago Press………………………..……………………………….T. David Brent

We Gather Together (Traditional Hymn)……………………………..………………….Organist Family Tributes

Being a Brother…………………………………………………………….……………Michael Solzman Reflections of a Daughter…………………………………………….…………….Nancy Solzman Reflections of a Daughter………………………………………………….……….Andrea Goldberg Scientific Statement of Being (Mary Baker Eddy).……….……………..Ariella Alarid (granddaughter)

Sim Shalom, M. Janowski…………………………………………….………………….……...Organist At this time the Family invites tributes from friends in attendance who wish to come forward. El Male Rachamim & Mourner’s Kaddish…………………………………….………….Sara Beth Koplik

Military Honors……………………………………………………………………………………… United States Navy Reading and Benediction/Adjournment……………………………………….…………Chaplain Helen Hazlett Toccata in F minor, C-M. Widor …………………….…………………………….…………Organist Carillion Postlude And, in the end, The love you take Is equal to The love you make.

“The End” by the Beatles (Album: Abbey Road).

Acknowledgements

The Solzman Family receives your expressions of love and condolences with deep appreciation and would like to thank everyone for their support during this time of bereavement. Many thanks to the Graham School for sponsoring the memorial and to Norman Williams at Unity Funeral Parlors for all his kind assistance to the family. Cover photo taken by photographer & hiking friend Robert Castellino. Center photo by Rachel McKinzie taken in Colorado. Ending photo by Victor Zaveduk on the occasion of David’s 80th birthday. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in David’s name to The Friends of the Chicago River, 411 S. Wells Street Suite 800, Chicago IL 60607 chicagoriver.org or The Greater Chicago Food Depository, 4100 W. Ann Lurie Place, Chicago Illinois 60632 chicagofoodbank.org.