Yale University

 

In Memoriam

Richard Stuart Teitz


Richard Teitz
1963 graduation

          Richard Stuart Teitz, 74, San Antonio, Texas, passed on June 19, 2017. He was born in Fall River, Massachusetts and raised in Newport, Rhode Island was a 1959 graduate of Rogers High School in Newport, received his Bachelor's degree from Yale University in 1963, and did post-graduate work at Harvard University and the Fogg Art Museum.

He spent more than 30 years in museum administration, including twelve years as Director of the Worcester Art Museum in Worcester, Massachusetts.

He later settled in San Antonio, Texas, where he was an educator, strategic consultant, restaurant reviewer, running coach, gallery director, and recently had begun painting. He volunteered with the Peace Corps in Panama and helped many non-profits organize and obtain grant funding. He loved working with USAID on projects in Africa and Georgia (formerly part of the USSR). He particularly enjoyed substitute teaching at Keystone School and interviewing high school applicants to his alma mater Yale.

Richard started running in his thirties to prepare for a climb to the base camp of Mount Everest, and went on to run 173 marathons, including Boston, New York, and Capetown, South Africa. He coached many Team In Training participants and enjoyed continuing to win races in his age group. He came to New York to do the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer with “Team Teitz” in 2010 with his two daughters, son-in-law Travis, sister Alexis and friends. In 2011, he completed a sail across the Atlantic to the Azores of Portugal with his sister Louise Ellen Teitz and friends. He loved to travel and went so many places!

Richard was predeceased by his parents, Lucille Feinstein Teitz and Alexander George Teitz, and sister Alexis Dale Teitz. He is survived by his children Rebecca Ackerman, Jessica and son-in-law Travis Becker, and Alexander Teitz, beloved grandsons Joshua and Daniel Ackerman and Zachary and Samuel Becker; sister Louise Ellen Teitz, brother Andrew and sister-in-law Lois Teitz, and their daughters, beloved nieces Elizabeth and Alexandra Teitz. He also leaves with love his partner Ellen Spangler, her daughter and son-in-law Jessica and Bryan Taylor, and their son Jackson Taylor.

Richard requested no service; the family will plan a life celebration in San Antonio at a later date. If you would like to make a contribution in his memory, Richard particularly supported the Keystone School in San Antonio and The Worcester Art Museum in Worcester, Massachusetts.

 

            Tom Chun recalls:  “As freshmen, Dick and I were assigned to the same entryway in Lawrance Hall.  We roomed together at Silliman and as next-door neighbors on the next-to-top floor of Ezra Stiles (just below Paul Weiss’s apartment).  Both of us went on to Harvard for graduate studies, he in art history and I in law.

Nevertheless, we had starkly different backgrounds.  I was from the Far West (Honolulu, HI), he was from the Far East (Newport, RI).  My father was a civil servant, his was a Harvard lawyer.  I leaned right politically, he leaned left.  I was inexperienced with girls, he had an uncanny attraction for passionate women.  

Obviously, we became lifelong friends.  Dick was relentlessly cheerful and adventuresome.  Although he was not an athlete at Yale (we spent much more time over beers than in the gym), he became an accomplished and persistent marathon runner (luckily, he was just out of range of the Tsarnaevs’ bomb at the 2013 Boston Marathon).  

Late in life, he took on extended overseas assignments in Panama (Peace Corps) and Georgia (USAID).  He also became a food critic and painter, and a prolific Facebook user.  He took advantage of life’s opportunities, and he faced its challenges with perspective and a sense of humor. 

Fortunately, his daughter Jessie settled nearby in Palo Alto.  Hence, his visits became more frequent, and we typically got together over lunch to discuss, inter alia, his most recent adventures.  It was a shock to learn that he had entered hospice care and that his most recent visit was his last.  A Dios, faithful friend . . .”