Memorials / Obituaries

Elizabeth von Groeller, age seventy-two, passed away from endometrial and colon cancer on March 9, 2026. Liz was born in Detroit, Michigan, of Austrian and Canadian parents. From an early age, however, her European and Canadian relatives visited her or welcomed her in their home countries.

Alfred Slote, beloved husband, father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and friend, died Sunday, April 26. He was ninety-nine. Born in 1926 in Brooklyn, New York, to Jewish immigrant parents, Alfred earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in English at the University of Michigan. He later returned with his wife Henrietta Howell Slote and young family to Ann Arbor in 1956 to begin his “day job” writing and producing educational television shows at the university’s Television Center (now Michigan Media). He was also a prolific author, best known for his novels for preteens, many set in “Arborville.” He published twenty-eight books in all, two of which (Jake and Finding Buck McHenry) were made into movies. He was a man of a million stories, of enormous energy, funny, smart, generous, athletic, curious, and kind. Not surprisingly, he has written his own obituary:

Dick Sarns passed away on Sunday, April 19, 2026, at age ninety-eight. He was an engineer and entrepreneur, yet he is best remembered as a devoted husband to his beloved wife of seventy-four years, Norma. They shared a beautiful and adventurous life together.

Philip Lawrence Roe, much loved husband, father, grandfather, and scientist, died on April 26, 2026, at the age of eighty-seven.

Robert “Bob” Guenzel was born in Detroit, Michigan, on November 22, 1941, to Robert and Violet Guenzel and died peacefully on Sunday, February 8, 2026, following a long decline caused by Lewy Body Dementia.