Deceased 2020

1969 members also posted comments on that year's website:

I have a vivid memory of talking to Gideon in the lounge at Pyle one night. He had undergone heart surgery during the summer to correct a congenital defect. He had been told that without surgery he wouldn't survive past forty. Now the surgery was behind him, he was back at Oberlin, and his future was wide open. "Now I have time!" he kept saying, with such joy and astonishment. "I have time!" I'm sad to learn of his passing, but I'm glad he was granted those decades beyond age forty, the chance to live his life to the fullest and to contribute in so many ways. Deborah Kent Stein 

Gideon was one of the most wonderful people in my experience at Oberlin. No one was more pro-Oberlin than he. He directed me in Guys and Dolls and Finian's Rainbow. He was so gentle, never critical and always made the actor feel she was doing the right thing. I was so happy to keep up our relationship over the years. As I have seen on the website, so many of us have. In recent years when two scandals developed on campus, the awful event at the apple cider and donut shop that we loved and at the firing of all the service workers in the dining rooms, Gideon stayed true to Oberlin, thinking about the long haul, that the college would overcome these unfortunate events. He must have been one of the most generous graduates the college has ever known. According to all the encomiums on the website, it is clear there are so many of us who will forever miss him. I too would like to participate in a scholarship in his memory. Love to Gideon, Wendy Simon Schwartz

I knew Gideon only slightly at Oberlin, once sharing a History of Judaism class with Nate Greenberg and once appearing together in Betty Lind's production of Blue Bird combining dance and drama. Gideon, as I remember, played a large floppy dog. I got to know him better at our intermittent five year reunion meetings over the past 25 years. We laughed together over his memory of watching a particular scene in Blue Bird in which I had to roll over my dance partner's bent back and invariably ended up on my rear end. I still chuckle over Gideon's revelation that he had a betting pool going with the other actors whether I would actually land on my feet. (I never did...) At reunions we talked of many things, particularly about growing older and his expertise in helping the elderly remain at home. We often ended up waiting for a plane at the airport and shared our impressions of the reunion. I will remember him with tears in my eyes and laughter. Eve Goldberg Tal

Gideon was the director of Finian's Rainbow during my sophomore year at Oberlin. I tried out for the chorus – no dice against the really good singers. Then I tried out for the dance troupe and made it! Wonderful Mary Lewis choreography! I was delighted when it was announced that the dancers could sing in the finale and we rehearsed. François Clemmons was my dance partner and I was pretty sure that any wrong notes I sang would be covered by his superb tenor voice. Imagine my disappointment when Gideon yelled "Cut, cut cut! Dancers just mouth the words!" My husband quotes Gideon if I'm singing in the shower. To this day, I'm sure François was unbalancing the chorus and THAT'S why Gideon told us dancers to just mouth the words. Gideon got us theater tickets to see a desired musical on Broadway some years ago and then came to visit us in Lexington, Va. I had great admiration for his enormous talents and will miss him. Biz Glenn Harralson

Gideon was so accomplished as a director, as a French speaker, as a person who lived life with such passion that people naturally clustered around him. All this left me in awe, so I was amazed I got to work with him, first when he directed Finian’s Rainbow, and I did the choreography. I remember a particular incident near opening night when we were rehearsing a jig number with lots of footwork, twelve dancers in unison. It looked pretty good, and I was going to be satisfied, unwilling to press these hard working dancers any more. But Gideon saw the potential and drilled them over and over. That’s exactly what they needed, and the dancers were as thrilled as I was, at how much better it got. What a lesson. After that I wasn’t afraid to insist on that extra push in any number of things I did, not just choreography. I got to know him better when he directed and I choreographed the summer G &S players on Cape Cod one summer, and once the two of us, not needing to be in a performance, took the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard to see Wendy Simon in a production of Pirates by Yale I think, a modern version in black leather jackets and motorcycles instead of Brits on the high seas. She was great! And so were the conversations we had about theater, the arts, whatever, he knew so much. He was always someone I hoped to see at reunions, if our clusters allowed. Once when I arrived for a class picture from a a tour around town on my roller skates, because I hadn’t planned enough time to change, he happened to be nearby and took a moment to roll his eyes and say something like, of course, it’s Lewis. Thanks for that, Gideon, and for all the other stuff too. Mary Lewis
 

I remember that production of Waiting for Godot in the Arb – perfect setting for a perfect performance. I think of it whenever I hear someone use the phrase. Robert Goertz

Gideon as Estragon and bearded Barry Mallis as Vladimir in the April 1968 production
of Godot in the Little Theater, from the Oberlin Review's preview and review.

I got to know Gideon on my trips back to Oberlin for the Heisman Club and the Alumni Council. We would meet and talk about Oberlin or current events. One evening he joined me for a Heisman Club reception. As a former varsity athlete, ice hockey, he was a member of the Heisman Club. He told me his biggest thrill of his Oberlin career was sitting in the Notre Dame locker room after defeating them on their home ice. I am saddened and will truly miss him. David Eisner

Gideon and I knew each other on the peripheries while at Oberlin. Was at a handful of reunions that we got better acquainted, especially over discussing art, theater, technologies, and bugaboos in a morphed culture. One thing always echoed about Gideon, regardless whether we agreed or not...he was never just a malleable script for sale but a statement of the heart, worthy of his 'stubborn' insistences and worthy of respect. His was never just a temporary act on stage but a true Mensch within the many intersections of life itself. Thanks for the guidance and refinements, Gideon; and for hollering 'cut, cut, cut', when necessary. Michael Lubas

I got to know Gideon best in the years we shared as Alumni Executive Board members (2000-2003?). At a Maine summer meeting during a free afternoon, he gave me a few tips on rowing technique. Mostly we engaged in a lengthy philosophical conversation to the sound of waves gently lapping against the sides of the boat. Afterward we browsed through a gift shop and I desperately wanted to buy a blueberry print apron. I knew it would make a treasured memento of the Maine blueberry pie slices that were a ritual at every summer meeting I attended. I didn’t have enough cash with me, but Gideon opened his wallet to cover the gap. (I paid him back that night at dinner.) I still use that apron for spring/summer cooking, stained as it is. And I think of Gideon. At our campus Executive Board meetings, Gideon would passionately advocate for the continuation of printed alumni publications. In those years a lot of publications were going electronic and he used to say he spent enough time looking at a computer screen and wanted to hold what he was reading from Oberlin in his hand. I tended to agree with him. Last time I saw him I should have asked what he thought about that subject this far into the 21st century. Another Gideon memory I have is of walking across Tappan Square at a cluster reunion and spotting him on a bench facing College Street. I stopped to chat and he spoke enthusiastically of the dappled sun, the streetscape, and the reconnections a cluster reunion provides. For that moment, at least, he was savoring the moment. I had not always remembered him in that mode. I will miss him in all of his modes at our next cluster reunion. Jean Bailey Jerauld

Gideon was a dear friend and colleague from the first time I was in a show he was directing to many, many ACWs to my last conversations when he answered his phone in the hospital and then at home. He was still his wonderful irascible self and thanked me so much for calling and urged me to call again, which I was planning to do the day I heard he had died. May he rest in peace, though he'll probably resist doing so... Walt Galloway