Obituary: SEVY, ROGER

Roger W. Sevy1923 ~ 2012Dr. Roger Warren Sevy died peacefully at home in Easton, PA on May 12, 2012, at the age of 88. The son of Maude Malmquist Sevy and Carl Spencer Sevy. He was born on November 6, 1923 in Richfield, Utah. He spent his boyhood in Grass Valley and Sigurd, Utah, riding his horse, Juana, and helping on the family ranch thinning sugar beets and making hay. In high school in Richfield, Roger was president of his FFA chapter, and won first prize at the state level for hisspeech "Agriculture's Role in a Planned American Democracy". He attended Utah State Agricultural College on a Sears Roebuck Scholarship for two years before enlisting in the Army in 1943.Sent by the Army to Harvard University, he earned Army Specialized Training certificates in basic engineering and pre-medicine in 1944, served as a medical corpsman at Waltham Regional Hospital, and was then enrolled by the Army at the University of Vermont Medical School before his discharge in 1946. Roger completed his second year of medical school and earned a Master of Science degree at UVM, where he met his future wife, Barbara Snetsinger, on a blind date in 1947. They were married on August 16, 1948, and moved to Chicago, where Roger continued his education at the University of Illinois, earning a PhD in physiology in 1952, and an M.D. in 1954.Roger and Barbara moved to Philadelphia in 1955, where Roger completed his medical internship at Temple University Medical School, earned a full professorship in 1956 and became chair of the Pharmacology department in 1957. His main area of research was in renal physiology and hypertension, and he led the team that developed Temple Hospital's first artificial kidney. His daughter Pamela was born in 1957, and his son Jonathan in 1959. The family moved to Jenkintown, PA, in 1960. Roger served as Dean of Temple Medical School from 1973 to 1979, and then returned to doing what he truly loved, teaching and research, for the remaining 10 years of his 35-year career at Temple.During retirement, Roger and Barbara traveled extensively, especially in Europe, took classes at the University of Pennsylvania, and enjoyed just being at home together. After Barbara's death in 2010, Roger moved to Easton to live with his son Jonathan and daughter-in-law Shirley (Sam) Wagner-Sevy.Roger was a devoted husband, loving father and caring brother who will be greatly missed by his family and friends. Leading by example, he passed on his love of learning, his belief that all people are to be treated with respect, and his ability to laugh at himself, for which his children will be forever grateful.In addition to his wife, he was preceded in death by his parents and sisters JoAnne Mallory and Geraldine Blackham. In addition to his children and daughter-in law, he is survived by sisters Ruth Dragg, Nonagene Wycisk and Carla (Klint) Rogers, brother-in-law Robert (Brenda) Snetsinger, many nephews and nieces, grand-nephews and grand-nieces, dear friends Christian and Helga Munzner, and devoted caregivers Linda Muldrow, Marie Pierre and Lillian Peart. No services are planned. Donations in his memory may be made to the Temple University Medical School scholarship fund.