Death of a Classmate - Jerry Herbert Anderson

Dear Will,

I have attached a write-up on Jerry Anderson, our classmate. Jerry was my roommate my youngster year, and you may remember that he was an outstanding diver. I think he won the Eastern Diving Championship. He was invited by the 1952 Olympic diving coach, Mike Peppy, to train at Ohio State inh June and July of 1952 in preparation for the Olympic tryouts. The Naval Academy turned down his request. Jerry had chronic sea-sickness, so he resigned from the Naval Academy and became a physician.

Sincerely,
Wally Anderson

JERRY HERBERT ANDERSON, M.D., died on February 18, 2009, of respiratory failure at age 76, just five days short of his seventy-seventh birthday. He was born in Hastings, Nebraska, on February 23, 1932. His death ended years of illness that had curtailed his medical practice and his full enjoyment of life.

Jerry, a member of the U. S. Naval Academy Class of 1954 and a nationally-ranked diver, had left the Naval Academy at the end of two years to pursue a medical career. He returned to Hastings College in Hastings, Nebraska, to complete his pre-med courses and then entered Medical School at McGill University, Montreal, Canada. He was an All-American in diving while at Hastings, and while at McGill, he enjoyed another four years of Canadian Intercollegiate athletics participating in football, gymnastics and diving, achieving Canadian championships in gymnastics and diving. Following graduation from Medical School in 1958, he chose to intern in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where he continued to pursue his diving. He represented Puerto Rico in both the 1964 and 1968 Olympic Games and coached diving in the 1972 Olympics. In 1998, Jerry was inducted into the McGill University Sports Hall of Fame.

Jerry received a residency in Neurology while in Puerto Rico and served on the faculty of the University there while practicing neurology. He also completed post-doctoral studies in bio-medical communications at NIH in Washington, D.C. and at UCLA in the 1960’s. In the mid-1970’s he moved to Florida to join a neurological practice. It was about 1978 that he was diagnosed with Sarcoidosis, a disease that attacks body organs by a clustering of immune cells to form lumps called granulomas. The disease is treated with cortisone, resulting in severe debilitation of joints. In effect, Jerry was crippled by these treatments and had to forego his medical practice.

At the time of Jerry’s death, he was living in Hollywood, Florida. He is survived by his wife of forty-seven years, Elvira M. Anderson; one son, Brian; two step-daughters, Elvie and Yolanda; one step-son, Diego, two grandsons, Scott and Kirk, and numerous step-grandchildren. He leaves two older sisters, Genie Haynes and Shelley Anderson of Denver Colorado, and one younger brother, Capt. Timm Anderson, USN (Ret.), of Edgewater, Maryland.

Memorial gifts may be made to the Ken Morrison & Tom Reeves Science Building at Hastings College, 710 N. Turner, Hastings, NE, 68901.