Octave and Mary Jo Levenspiel

Jeff and Amelia

Amelia and I were very sorry to learn of Tavy’s passing, and our thoughts are with you all. I was very proud of my famous chemical-engineering cousin. When we were children, my dad (Joe) always talked to us about his brother Abe who was then living in China,and who sent us English-language Shanghai newspapers. We didn’t know about his son, but in 1948 Tavy came to Europe to see the Olympics and we got to know him then. This caused him later problems when applying for US citizenship, because my parents were very public communists. Tavy gave me Olympics tickets which he couldn’t take up, and these introduced me to Olympic basketball, ice hockey and soccer. He was great fun and very generous. I also visited him at Evanston, and later we both shared a holiday in Oregon, which I visited both professionally and for family.
He was a lovely man, and he led a successful and fulfilling life. We are proud that we could call him member of our family.