Eulogy for Harold Ivan Modell, by his daughter, Tamara Modell, April 11, 2023

Trying to write this eulogy is bringing me back to my college years of pulling all-nighters, writing papers at the last minute. The main differences are that for this, there is no other minute but the last. And, more importantly, I can’t call my Dad to get his opinion. I often called my Dad at midnight to get feedback on papers and materials and plans I was working on, knowing that he would always answer the phone and happily give me feedback.

As I struggle to try to encapsulate and convey the essence of 79 years of a life and my 52 years of memories of it, it strikes me that it wasn’t just late-night phone calls that would always be answered and given immediate attention. Harold always made himself available to anyone who might need a listening ear, word of advice, or action taken. He loved to mentor people and to share his philosophy of life and learning. He was so generous with his time and energy.

He was a very busy person who took on extra missions and duties all the time, but, if you needed something, you wouldn’t know this. He somehow found time to help right away because that was a top priority for him. Communicating and connecting with people was important to him and he thought about communication a lot. Whether in a professional or personal setting, he often tried to communicate and connect by sharing a story, music, or humor. My mom urged me to choose humor today. Both she and Harold shared the philosophy that a sense of humor is of utmost importance for getting through life. But I don’t think I’ll be able to be that humorous, and I think that will be ok because a lot of people didn’t like or get my Dad’s sense of humor anyway. Music was an absolutely essential part of his life, which he expressed in so many different ways. Unfortunately, we’re not equipped here to share music, so that leaves me with telling a story.

Once upon a time, there was a Jewish family living in Jamestown, ND. The parents, William Modell, known as Billy, and Frieda Modell were both part of large immigrant families who escaped the Jewish persecutions in what are now Ukraine and Belarus. Both Billy and Frieda were teenagers when they arrived in America in the 1920s and 30s. Neither of them knew English when they arrived and, although nowadays they would have been high schoolers, back then, they went straight to work. At the beginning of 1943, they were a family of four: Billy, Frieda, and their 2 sons, Jerry and Paul. On December 15, 1943, their family was completed with the birth of their 3rd son, whom they named Harold (unfortunately for him because he never liked his name.)

A large network of extended family was part of Harold’s daily childhood life. By the time Harold was school-aged, the family had settled into a small duplex in St. Paul, MN and were literally surrounded by extended family, including Harold’s Aunt Hilda and Uncle Irving, who lived right upstairs.

Family, both immediate and extended, would be an important priority for all of Harold’s life, although he and Jane moved to the nether regions of Seattle in the 1970s, where neither had any relatives.

Whenever I traveled anywhere in the US, my Dad would tell me to call so-and-so, who was, of course, often a family member. I would reply, “But I don’t even know them.” And he would answer, “They’re your cousin” - or whatever, and include some convoluted explanation on the genealogy. And then he would say, “It doesn’t matter that you don’t know them, I know them, and they know you.”

After high school, Harold enrolled at the University of Minnesota and, in the summer of ‘64, he met Jane, “the wind beneath his wings.” As was true with many of his relationships, Jane initially disliked Harold, being put off by his so-called sense of “humor.” It was Jane’s first day of work at the University Hospital’s coffee shop. These were the days of the soda jerk - when the carbonated water and the soda syrup had to be added separately to create the drink. Jane had been carefully instructed on how to make a Coca-Cola -- add 2 pumps of Coke syrup to the glass and fill it up with carbonated water. After her employee training, 18-year-old Jane waited for a customer to arrive, reviewing in her head all the new information, nervously hoping that she would remember everything correctly.

Harold, who was working in the labs at the hospital, visited the coffee shop daily for Cokes and, as fate would have it, he was Jane’s very first customer. He sat at the counter and ordered a Coke. Jane dutifully followed her training, adding exactly 2 pumps of syrup to his drink. She nervously set it down and walked away, only to have him beckon her back with a crooked finger and an intimidating look on his face. “Is there a problem?” she asked. “Can I have some Coke in this Coke?” he responded. She explained about the 2-pump policy, and he countered that he came in all the time and got more than that. They argued for a while until Jane finally gave in and added 2 additional pumps of syrup to his Coke. From then on, she would surreptitiously add 4 pumps of syrup to Harold’s Cokes.

One day, not too long after this first encounter, Harold offered to give Jane a ride home from the coffee shop. She accepted his offer, but when he opened the car door for her, she was dismayed to see that there were no seats in the car. A plastic lawn chair was positioned in front of the steering wheel and the floor of the car was scattered with pillows to sit on. Harold explained that he was having his car seats reupholstered.

This type of experience was also not uncommon in Harold’s relationships. He solved problems and did things his own way, rigging up solutions from whatever he had on hand. He didn’t care how things appeared, didn’t worry about making a certain type of impression, and didn’t give much credence to social conventions.

Amazingly, my mother still agreed to the ride, albeit a bit hesitantly. That was the beginning of a great friendship. My parents always told me that they never dated. I never understood how that works. But they were great friends for many years, during which both of them finished their programs at UofM, Jane started working as a hospital radiographer, and Harold continued his education at Iowa State, earning his Master’s degree in 1969.

I remember him once telling me that he was only a class or two away from earning either a Biomedical Engineering degree or a Physiology degree. The difference, he said, is that engineers like to make things pretty, and physiologists like to make things work.  I’m sure his engineering classes played a role in his early work with computers, starting with wall-size computers that he coded using punch cards.

Near the end of his program at Iowa State, he met a professor from the University of Mississippi who told him he should come down to Jackson, work for him and earn his doctorate in Physiology there. Harold thought this sounded fun and took him up on his offer.

These days you hear a lot of talk about following your passion to find a profession. Harold always said that he was never going to retire because he was already doing what he loved. But he didn’t believe that you needed to find your passion and then follow it. He advised to just focus on one step at a time and when an opportunity that sounds fun comes up, you take it. Your path isn’t planned, it’s created on the go. So here is the first Modell-ism I’m sharing today, “One step at a time.” It’s easy to get bogged down, overwhelmed, and inactive trying to plan out every step at the beginning. And how can you do that anyway, when you don’t yet know where the first step will take you?

So where did this step to Jackson take him? Well, I don’t really understand the hows and whys of it, but for some reason, his good friend Jane drove 15 hours straight to join him in Jackson, whereupon he handed her his “marriage contract,” perhaps written by the company he started in high school, “Modell’s Writing Service Company, Inc - Writers of humorous (?), ridiculous, and stupid letters.” Our slogan is “You name it, we’ll write it.”

Jane signed the “contract,” and they were married on April 12, 1970. They would have been married 53 years, tomorrow. I thought perhaps it was the deep friendship they shared before getting married that was the secret to their long, successful union. But both Harold and Jane insisted the secret to a successful marriage is separate bathrooms.

While in college, Harold joined the army reserves. His fellow recruits soon learned what he really was at heart, a Jewish mother. They presented him with a plaque printed with the lyrics to the song, “Mother,” the one that starts with “M is for the million things she gave me,” and ends with “put them all together they spell mother, a word that means the world to me.” The plaque says, “Presented in appreciation to Harold “Mother” Modell by the men of Recruit Co. US Army hospital 5501, July 1966.”

Harold loved to take care of people, and he liked to cook special foods for people. He was known for his latkes, which he made for many Chanukah parties and even made for the occupational therapy team during his rehab at UW Hospital after his spinal stenosis surgery in 2015.

In March of 1971, I was born. My Dad was there when I came into this world, and I was there when he left it. And in between, as he told me a few years ago, “the three of us grew up together.”

After a post-doc in Buffalo, NY, in 1975 we packed up the car and headed out to Seattle where Harold had accepted a faculty position at the University of Washington.

Our “growing up together” included many outings and adventures on the weekends, hikes, ferry rides, movies, plays, and, of course, concerts. Harold met Frank Demiero, the director of the Edmonds Community College Jazz Choir in the 1970s. He and Frank were great friends and collaborators, and Harold spent a lot of time helping out with Frank’s JazzFest each year and, later, serving on the board of the Friends of Frank Demiero Music Foundation. Through these experiences, he fostered relationships with many jazz musicians. Harold liked to share his passions, and he seemed to always find a way to combine music with education, whether through organizing events at my elementary and middle schools or by hosting workshops with jazz musicians for his students at Bastyr University.

Music was a cornerstone of his life. The house was always filled with music, whether it be recorded music, my Dad playing his harmonica, the two of us playing clarinet together or us singing. When I was a child, we sang together all the time, in the house and in the car. He never formally learned to play an instrument or read music, but he figured out how to play by ear. Harold found his true Nirvana when he and Jane went on their first Jazz Cruise, which consisted of seven days of nearly non-stop live music. They booked the next cruise before the first one ended and went every winter for many years. Harold continued to grow his network of musician friends, collaborating on new ways to incorporate jazz into education.

While growing up, I was impressed by how my mom and dad always worked together as a team. From household tasks like building a couch or wallpapering to designing interactive Sunday School lessons, serving as co-presidents of the PTA, volunteering as docents for traveling exhibits, or even starting a newsletter to bring Seattle School District parents positive news stories about the schools. These joint ventures often focused on bringing people together. Harold and Jane were known for their hospitality, from hosting small, but elaborately themed, dinner parties, to large summer barbecues and many holiday celebrations. Several people have sent emails expressing that Harold and Jane’s Passover seders were a meaningful part of their lives.

Harold continued to work at the UW for many years, but he was becoming less interested in respiratory research and more interested in educational research, with the goal of improving life science education in general, and physiology education in particular. He had been interested in the use of computers in the classroom since the 1970s and had created computer simulations for medical students. In 1984, he started the Computers in Life Science Education newsletter, which he published until 1992. It can be found on the ERIC database online.

In 1989, Harold decided it was time to leave the research-centered University of Washington in order to more fully pursue his passion for teaching and educational research. He joined the faculty at the School of Naturopathic Medicine at Bastyr University, where he could use his classes as a laboratory to design and test more effective materials and techniques to better help students learn physiology and neuroscience. At the same time, he created an independent educational consulting business and the Physiology Educational Research Consortium, or PERC. PERC was a collaboration of life science educators from all over the country who were interested in bettering life science education.

Sometime in the early 1990s, my Dad and I were having dinner with a relative, and the comment was made by both of them that no one knew what my Dad did for a living. This was surprising to me because I thought it was pretty clear - he was a professor of Physiology and Neuroscience and an independent educational researcher, consultant, and materials developer. But I suppose part of the confusion was that any time someone said to my Dad, “Oh, you’re a professor,” or “Ok, so you teach,” he would say “No.” Then finally explain that he was a “facilitator of learning, helping the learner to learn." Also, Dad was not interested in talking about his accomplishments or awards. But Mom wants to make sure that someone does, so here are some examples:

As the Director of PERC, he was the principal investigator on grants funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Office of Naval Research, and the National Science Foundation. He influenced the teaching of life science around the country and the world through his research, materials development, and faculty development workshops. He co-wrote two books and countless journal articles, designed a series of interactive educational software, and collaborated with McGraw-Hill publishers in revamping their Human Physiology textbook to include his common models approach to physiology. He presented each year at the major professional conferences. He was a founder of the American Physiological Society, Teaching of Physiology Section, was the founding editor-in-chief of the professional journal, Advances in Physiology Education, and received national and local teaching awards. I thought it was cool that he wrote the respiratory system entry for the World Book Encyclopedia. He probably had a lot of other professional accomplishments, but, since he didn’t care about broadcasting them, I don’t remember. The accolades that meant the most to him were the many thank-you notes he received from his students each year.

The Modell-ism probably best known by his Bastyr students was how he answered the inevitable question, “Is this test cumulative?” His answer was always, “Life is cumulative.”

This year, the first night of Passover was last Wednesday, April 5th, which is the 14th of Nissan on the Jewish calendar. Harold died on the 17th of Nissan, the same date that his father, Bill, died in 1966. His oldest brother, Jerry, died on the 20th of Nissan, which was also during Passover. A Jewish Israeli friend texted us, “In Jewish faith, a person who dies on a special day, like during a holiday, is considered a Tzadik. This is a great honor.”

A commonly used definition of a Tzadik is, “an extremely righteous person.”

But I found two other definitions of a Tzadik that I think suit my dad much more. The first is by Rabbi Boruch Clinton, who states that “A Tzadik will carefully think about all his abilities, resources, and talents and faithfully use them all to precisely fulfill G-d’s will. If someone manages to do this his entire life - to constantly struggle for G-d’s interests despite opposition – then, he will have become a Tzadik. “

Strangely enough, I think this definition directly leads to the penultimate Modell-ism I’m going to share. It’s a quote from Bette Midler, and I debated many times if it was appropriate to include it in this setting. I decided to just follow the Modell-ism and do it. It is: “F___ ‘em if they can’t take a joke.” He told me this for decades, and I never found it helpful. But very recently, he was explaining the meaning to my daughter, Lynnea, and he said it means that if you think you are doing the right thing, and you are trying to do something good, don’t worry if other people disagree with you, criticize you or try to obstruct you. And to me, this explanation is strikingly similar to Rabbi Clinton’s explanation of a Tzadik.

Thinking about how to encapsulate my Dad’s life, and the ways in which he interacted with the world, the phrase that popped into my mind was: Tikkun Olam - the duty we have to try to heal or repair the imperfections we see in the world. I don’t remember him ever talking about tikkun olam, but I realize he demonstrated it his whole life. Not everyone liked or agreed with his style sometimes. His humor was often sarcastic, and he could also be blunt. But there was never any intent to offend or hurt anyone. His intent was to make the world a better place in whatever ways he could. He was always looking to solve problems and help people.

Rav Kahaneman, the renowned Torah and Talmudic scholar, defines a Tzadik simply as a person with a Lev Tov -- a good heart. And this, more than anything, I think, describes my Dad.

This is the end of the page, but it is not the end of the story. Which leads me to the last Modell-ism I’ll share with you today.   And that is: “Don’t worry, it’ll be just fine.”

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List of some Modell-isms

Keep your eye upon the donut and not upon the hole. – often given as advice to newlyweds

Me and Janey, we ain’t so dumb.

Always have a slide in your back pocket.

One step at a time.

Have some patience.

Just humor me.

F___‘em if they can’t take a joke.

Life is cumulative.

Don’t worry, it’ll be just fine.

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