Neal Heaps ’42 passed away a couple of weeks at the age of 102. I had missed the Chronicle obituary during the chaos after Hurricane Beryl but am thankful that Grungy took the time to send it to me. I wouldn’t have wanted to miss this:
Neal’s father was Claude Heaps, who arrived at Rice in 1914 to teach Physics and remained on staff for forty-three years. And Neal, I believe, was the very last of that generation of children who were raised in the closely knit campus community during the early years of the Institute. This community truly was a large extended family for the young faculty members recruited by Lovett, most of whom left families and institutions back east to pioneer the new university in Houston. Katherine Tsanoff Brown, Marjorie Bray Chapman, Joan Wilson Sherred, Ray Watkin Hoagland Strange, George and Griffy Evans, and many others spent their early lives entwined with Rice and each other, many remaining good friends their entire lives.
Neal was a lovely man, always curious and kind, fun to be with, and deeply grateful for Rice and the childhood spent here. Here he is at a Galveston outing with the Math Department sometime in the 1930s:
And explaining his project for the Engineering Show in 1940:
And finally, during the centennial in 2012 describing some of his time here during the early days:
Neal Heaps, rest in peace.