Monterey County Herald, CA March 31, 2012 (scanned)
Dr. Whitney Philip Brown March 31, 1937-August 29, 2011 Carmel – Whitney Phillip Brown, 74, died unexpectedly I his sleep on August 29, 2011. It was a natural death but the cause was undetermined. Today would have been his 75th birthday. This is not a many [worded story about a man’s achievements. It is a many-worded story about a man who lived a goof life and was loved by many. Whitney was born and reared in Great Falls Montana, where he came into this world at the Deaconess Hospital. He was the longtime-yearned-for and eagerly anticipated first-born child to bless the lives of Marcia Brown (nee Brown) and Henry Peleg Brown. His maternal grandmother, Clara “Mimi” Bullard Brown (whose husband Herbert Wood Brown had died years earlier), and his paternal grandparents, Francis “Popsy” Barry Puncheon Morley Brown and Mary Alva Brown (who died unexpectedly at age 54 shortly after Whitney’s birth), were over the moon with joy to welcome little Whitney. Whitney’s parents doted over him but did not spoil him. They left that to Mimi and Popsy. Mimi was devoted to the little boy with black hair, big blue eyes, and a widow’s peak (distinguishing feature). She taught him about all the world in which she had widely traveled. She taught him lovely manners. She also taught him to be kind, thoughtful, and mindful of everyone’s feelings. She insisted that all human beings be treated politely and with dignity and respect. Popsy could not get enough of his first grandchild. Newly retired as longtime president of the Great Falls Meat Company (Rainbow Brand), Popsy well deserved some time off, and off he trotted (rather drove) Whtney all around town in his car on a daily basis. He took Whitney on well-planned little jaunts to teach him about all things beautiful in nature: the swans and ducks, so fun to feed, at Gibson Park Pond, the fish hatchery at Grant Springs, the five nearby Missouri River waterfalls; Black Eagle, Cotter Rainbow, Crooked, and The Great Falls (87 feet). Popsy introduced Whitney to the beautiful stained glass windows at the First Presbyterian Church, where Whitney would usher throughout his teenage years. Popsy and Whitney bonded as best friends, and it was to be that way for eighteen delightful years. Many in Great Falls (population 65,000) would enjoy seeing the duo driving everywhere, the little boy always perched on his grandfather’s lap or standing tall on the front seat clinging to his grandfather (before the days of children’s safety seats). Little wonder that Whitney’s first word was “car”, and the family story is that Popsy must have had the patience of Job because for many of those early years every time he saw another car Whitney would exclaim, “Car!” over and over again. Whitney had a lifetime love of cars, and with his encyclopedia; mind he could tell you everything about every car ever made. Whitney always said that he had a perfect childhood, and he was a very good boy indeed. (All his life, he would state over and over that he could not have had better parents – parents who were ecstatic to have him.) Very studious, somewhat shy, a great lover of learning, he would spend hours in his chemistry lab, a good-sized room at home, which he kept ever-so-neat. Whitney was always highly organized. He loved being a Cub and Boy Scout, and he had loss of boyfriends and lots of girlfriends growing up. He joined DeMolay. He played team golf at the Meadowlark County [sic] Club. He played hockey and sledded in the winter. He dived and swam in the summer. He was a marbles champion. He was good at tennis. He worked summers at his family’s meat company. Popsy would take him to all the hockey games at the Civic Center and all the professional baseball games at Legion park, where the Great Falls minor-league baseball team (the Electrics), affiliated with the Dodgers, played. Whitney was a protective, devoted, and loving brother to his little sister, his only sibling. He actually wanted a little sister and “had her back” all his life. He held her hand on the way to kindergarten and Sunday school until she was a big girl of six. He lectured her throughout high school on everything she should know about everything, including boys. When she married, he stood in for her deceased father and lovingly gave her away. (At age 26, Whitney was devastated when he unexpectedly lost his 56-year-old father, whom he adored. Supposedly in great health, his father was suddenly stricken by a weakened heart.) When Whitney married at age sixty, ending along life of bachelorhood, he selected his sister as his “best man”. It was always that way. The two siblings were extremely close. So close that it became impossible for his sister to write his obituary until some of the pain from his death had subsided. For that, she apologizes to Whitney’s family and many friends. Whitney was an outstanding math and science student at Great Galls High School. He was a member of the National Honor Society. He loved every school science project he was ever given. He would exceed expectations. One project taught him how to dispatch insects painlessly. His assignment was to collect a certain number of insects, but he collected many, many more than he was asked to do. Whitney, who previously wouldn’t hurt a fly, dispatched and collected a huge number of bugs, but he could not bear to throw them away after his assignment. His parents had just purchased a brand-new home. Whitney initiated his new bedroom by pinning all his vast insect collection all over his ceiling. Sometime later, his mother gave a visiting college friend a tour of the new house. When the friend arrived at Whitney’s room and glanced up at the ceiling, she exclaimed, “Oh my goodness. I had no idea that a new Montana house like this would have so many bugs on the ceiling. We are lucky where we live that we don’t have any bugs in our houses.” Fifty years later, Whitney again had the urge to place something on the ceiling of his Carmel Views hobby room: perhaps the largest periodic table (tabular display of chemical elements) that anyone might ever see affixed to a ceiling. Although Whitney had lots of boyfriends and girlfriends, he had only one “real” girlfriend. He was an obedient son, but once when the family wouldn’t let hi drive the family car (a few days before his driver’s test) he bolted off on the family’s new seated power lawn mower and drove it for quite a distance to take “his first love” to Paul’s Park-In to dine on chocolate cookies and hamburgers with relish. Whitney’s lifetime ambition, which he indicated in his high school yearbook, the 1955 Roundup, was ironically as it turned out, “to become a full-fledged psychiatrist.” Whitney was graduated from high school in 1955 among students at the top of his class with proud Popsy sitting front and center in the audience. Whitney’s mother, father, and sister were also very proud of scholar Whitney. Sadly, Whitney would lose his beloved grandfather within the month. Summers at Flathead Lake would never be the same without Popsy. Popsy had a lovely log cabin there with a hug high rock fireplace and a whole separate sleeping house, plus a dock and a boat and all things fun. Whitney and Popsy spent parts of 17 summers there, but it was not to be 18. No more catching frogs, toads, and water snakes, then always letting them go. No more looking for arrowheads among the beautifully colored pebble son the beach. No more trolling or casting for so many different kinds of fish. No more fish stories. No more Montana history lessons. No more Popsy. After high school, Whitney as all set to go to Dartmouth College but at the last minute decided to attend the University of Colorado in Boulder, closer to home. He studied pre-med. He joined his father’s Phi Delta Theta fraternity, which made his father very happy. Because he had had too much fun his first year away from home, and needed “more A’s,” he enrolled the next year at Macalester, a small, private Presbyterian college in St. Paul, Minnesota, where continuing his pre-med studies, he did well. Before completing Macalester, Whitney decided to serve his country, become an officer, and learn to fly. He joined the 120th Fighter Wing. Montana Air National Guard, located at Great Falls. There were no pilot slots available at the time, so he became a navigator. He trained at James Connally Air Force Base near Waco, Texas, where he also continued his pre-med studies by taking courses at Baylor University, a nearby private Christian institution. Whitney learned to navigate the F-89C Scorpion jet fighter. One of his proudest moments was when his father came to Texas to pin on his wings. He in turn gave his father his wings, making his father very proud. On completion of his flight training, Whitney returned to Montana and continued flying while completing his pre-med education (B.S. degree) at the University of Great Falls, a private Catholic college. Unfortunately now, with a solid pre-med education under his belt, Whitney faced the grim reality that he did not do well around blood. He was very comfortable picking up worms, snakes, all sorts of bugs, dead birds, and even dead rats, but he could not handle the sight of blood. There went his dream of becoming a psychiatrist. A good friend, an optometrist, convinced him that optometry would be a splendid blood-free career, one where he could help others, as he had expected to do as a psychiatrist. So Whitney matriculated in the College of Optometry at Pacific University, a private school founded by the United Church of Christ in Forest Grove, Oregon. All went very well indeed. He even joined the 42nd Fighter Wing, Oregon Air National Guard, located in Portland. His personal life was joyous; he had fallen in love for the second time. Right in his prime, disaster stuck. No, his plane did not crash. He was struck down by a severe (to-be-a-lifetime) mental illness at age 28. Earlier the same day, a huge tree had fallen on his car, which he had exited only a few moments earlier. He suffered a psychotic break. At first, it was believed that he had fallen apart because of the close call with the tree. Oh, if only that were the problem. Whitney was hospitalized and sorrowfully diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He was placed on a regimen (to last a lifetime) of anti-psychotic and, in later years, mood-stabilizing drugs. (Whitney carried that early diagnosis for many years before it was chanted to bi-polar disorder. His family never understood the bipolar diagnosis because Whitney periodically became very manic but never depressed.) The hospitalization and subsequent recovery period caused him to miss a lot of school. To the school’s great credit, after his family had submitted a number of different psychiatrist’s opinions, Whitney was allowed to continue his professional studies. He worked double-time to catch up and graduated in 1966 after four years of studies with his class on time. The day Whitney carried his Doctor of Optometry (O.D., Oculus Doctor) title was the second-happiest occasion of his life, only to be eclipsed thirty years later by his happiest moment, his marriage to Lyuboy Savva, a Professor of Russian at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center in Monterey. Although his adored and adoring father had died four years earlier, Whitney’s mother and sister were there to share the joy of his wonderful achievement. (Whitney so had wished that his father could have been there. They had had a very close, mutually-adoring relationship. Words of anger were never heard between the two. Only expressions of love were exchanged. Whitney’s grandfather, Popsy, had always addressed Whitney’s father as “Son”, and Whitney’s father carried on that tradition with Whitney.) Upon graduation, Whitney could not wait to join hs little family (mother in Carmel, sister in Salinas), who now lived in California. He quickly secured a great job in Monterey County with a prominent optometrist. After reviewing Whitney’s mental illness history, which Whitney had thoroughly explained to him, this kind man understandably changed his mind. Whitney’s mental health was too frail and unpredictable. Whitney was resolved to practice optometry but was unable to find a position locally. A friend of Whitney’s in Montana, a highly respected optometrist, gave Whitney a grand opportunity to join his practice. Sad story, for short; after one week doing well on the job, Whitney had his second psychotic break. (Heartbreakingly, through the years there would be many more such episodes.) This second breakdown ended Whitney’s hope for a professional career. He longed to be an eye doctor, but that was now not to be. For several years, he worked diligently and well as a Weights and Measures Inspector for Monterey County. Sadly, another breakdown ended that job. Try as he might subsequently, Whitney could never again obtain any kind of employment because of his mental illness, which he was always honest about. By age 33, Whitney was out of the job market through no fault of his own. He spent his remaining years doing volunteer work. His family was pleased that he did not turn to alcohol or recreational drugs to ease the pain of living with a mental illness. Being highly educated but unable to secure employment, make his own way, or contribute professionally to society would have to have hurt his self-esteem and self-respect. This is exquisitely painful to write, but it a true account of a beloved brother’s life. It is not a perfect story, but it is his story. It is a story of a good man who had a bad mental illness. It is a story of a perfectly decent man who had to struggle with demons caused by bad brain chemistry 9the exact cause of bipolar disorder has yet to be determined, but a great deal of scientific evidence indicates a chemical imbalance in the brain), not bad character. Whitney was a longtime and faithful member of the Community Hospital of Monterey Peninsula Auxiliary. He never missed his regular duty for any reason. One day, rushing because he was a little behind schedule, he forget to open his garage door electronically. He drove tight through the door, wrecking his new car as well as the garage door. He didn’t blink, called a cab and managed to arrive on duty five minutes early. He took his responsibilities very seriously. Whitney was also a longtime, faithful Friendly Visitor for the Alliance on Aging. In this volunteer activity, he visited shut-ins and patients in skilled nursing facilities. Before every visit, he would buy each person his or her favorite special treat, such as a chocolate milkshake and bananas, which one woman especially enjoyed. While visiting one of the skilled nursing homes, he noticed a quadriplegic middle-aged man who seemed never to have visitors. From that day on, Whitney visited him for years. He brought him anything he requested including a TV, audio equipment, and many other items to help him through the long days. Noticing that an elderly man he visited couldn’t see the forest through his window because it was too high, Whitney brought him a platform and a special chair to raise him high enough to see the view. Whitney planned and hosted a wonderful 80th birthday party for the same man. There are many other sweet stories that could be told about the kind things that Whitney did for the dear people whom helped, including shopping and pleasure drives. Whitney was a very kind and thoughtful person. He never met a homeless or helpless person that he didn’t help in some way. Once a week, as long as he could drive, he faithfully would locate the prettiest bouquet of roses to bring to his beloved wife, Lyuba, but this is jumping ahead. Whitney was always very close to his mother. When he was well, no words of anger were ever heard between the two, only words of love. (Whitney always told his friends that he felt so fortunate that in his entire life he never witnessed any expression of anger by either of his parents.) Mother and son loved to work mathematic and word puzzles together. Whitney even got his symphony-opera-loving mother to enjoy his favorite rock-and-roll music. His mother was his rock, always there for him. He lost her in 1989, and after her death he suffered a series of mental set-backs. Subsequentley , he would visit the graves of his mother and father daily for many years until hew as no long able to drive. Such a loving son. When Whitney was 57, he met his third, final, and truest love, the only woman of the many he had dated, that he asked to marry him. On his 60th birthday, he married Lyubov “Luyba” Savva at the edge of cliff overlooking the Pacific ocean. This, indeed, was the happiest day of his live. The delightful, lovely, and very bright Lyuba certainly had been worth waiting for all those many bachelor years. Lyuba was a superb wife for Whitney and brought him great joy. She watched his diet like a nutritionist, feeding him only healthful, whole food, and she administered his pills meticulously, all the while making sure that he had enough rest. She made sure that Whitney was dressed in neat and clean clothes that she preferred to dry in the sun rather than in a dryer. She kept a beautiful, clean and tidy house. She had potted plants everywhere that she kept constantly in bloom. Whitney greatly appreciated Lyuba’s intellect. They did a good deal of traveling around the world. Lyuba was very warm and loving wife. Whitney said over and over again about his marriage, “I couldn’t be happier.” Whitney would want Lyuba to be thanked enormously for all she did to help keep him healthy and make him happy. For the first time in his life, Whitney had his own family. Lyuba made a full family life possible for the longtime bachelor. Lyuba’s two wonderful children and five precious grandchildren greatly enriched his own life. He loved all children, especially Lyuba’s grandchildren. He would have liked to have had his own, but he feared passing on his mental illness genes. Whitney doted on the two dogs in the family, Willy and Mickey, as well as their cat, Minnie. Lyuba was right; the pets were a great addition to the family and provided much love and comfort to Whitney, as well as Lyuba. Whitney, for all his problems, never complained. The numerous trips to get his blood tested (lithium levels), the many emergency hospitalizations, the terrible palsy inflicting him during the last ten years, due to the lithium, he bravely endured. Like his father and mother, he had a wonderful sense of humor. He was always cheerful and could not have been a kinder, more decent honorable man when he was well. That, heartbreakingly, was not true when Whitney’s mental illness manifested itself. Well, that is enough said. This is written in honor and respect for all the lovely qualities that Whitney had. Whitney, despite his problems, would say over and over throughout the years, “I couldn’t be happier.” Whitney enjoyed life very much. He loved solving very complicated math and physics problems, though he was unable to solve his own chemistry problems. He greatly enjoyed playing chess, cribbage, and scrabble. He was a great dancer. He was a very good billiards player. He loved his extensive library of non-fiction books. He was a prodigious reader. He loved rock-and-roll music. He loved the Three Stooges. He loved Fats Domino, James Brown, Tina Turner, and Paul Simon. He loved TV wrestling and billiards. He loved the 17-Mile Drive and Carmel’s Scenic Road. He loved to tease with his naughty sense of humor. He goat a big kick out of jokingly calling his sister “Mort”, “Mortimer”, “Mortecai”, Mortikee”, or “Morticus”, silly names he would allow no one else to sue. He loved bubble gum, licorice, ice water, beef jerky, and dark chocolate. He never drank coffee, but he loved tiramisu. He loved keeping in tough with his lifetime accumulation of many friends. He loved Lyuba. He loved life. Dr. Whitney Phillip Brown 1937-2020 The optometrist Whitney (I couldn’t be happier!) Brown very much wished to live until the year 2020 so that this is the way his tombstone would have read. Whitney was a shy and modest man whose greatest joy was doing lots of very kind deeds for lots of people in a very quiet way while seeking no acknowledgment. Whitney was a longtime member of Phi Delta Theta fraternity, Mensa, the Reserve officers Association, and the American Optometric Association, as well as other organizations. He loved his country and was proud to be a veteran, never missing an opportunity to donate to charities benefiting veterans. The two photos here were taken when Whitney was a young man; his high school yearbook (The Roundup) photo taken in 1957, the year of his graduation; and a photo taken at the time he received his doctorate degree. Whitney’s long illness had taken such a toll that he unfortunately did not photograph well in recent years. It bears repeating, Whitney was a very good man with a very bad mental illness. He went through life with the most dignity he could muster when he was not ill. Whitney handled his horrible mental illness as well as anyone could. He truly brightened the lives of all around him, who loved him so dearly. Whitney would have wished his life story to be written unvarnished as it happened. It was what it was. Painful as it was. Beautiful as it was. He was cheerful to the end. His death was totally unexpected and was devastating to his family and friends. Rest in peace, beloved Whitney. You are now and will always be greatly missed, never to be forgotten by all your dear ones. Whitney was pre-deceased by his maternal grandmother, Clara Bullard Brown, and maternal grandfather, Herbert Wood Brown Sr.; paternal grandmother, Mary Alva Brown, and paternal grandfather, Francis Harry Puncheon Morley Brown; aunts, Clara (Victor) Pelletier, Margaret (Norman) Caum, Dorothy (Robert) Sidenberg Sr., Rosemary (La Rue) Smith, and his uncle, Herbert Wood (Grace) Brown Jr. Whitney is survived by his wife, Lyubov; his sister, Morley Brown, and his brother-in-law, Ronald Weitzman. He is also survived by his cousins, Marcia (Willard) Sauerbrey of Costa Mesa (their four sons, Steven, Daniel, David, and Michael, with whom Whitney was very close), John Fahey of Missoula, MT, Robert (Susan) Sidenberg jr. of Minneapolis, MN, Mary Kate (John Kallestad) Sidenberg of Minneapolis, MN, Matthew (Linda) Brown of Missoula, MT, and Sandra Lou Brown (Whitney’s sister’s best friend) of Missoula, MT. Lyubov’s family, which made Whiteny a real family man at last, were always close to his heart. He is survived by Lyubov’s daughter, Yellena (Christopher) Clark of Carmel and her three children, Savely Vassiliev, Kiril Clark and Maxim Clark, all of Carmel, CA. Whitney is also survived by Lyubov’s son, Alexander (Adriadna) Savva and their son, Nicholas, and daughter, Nadia, of San Jose, Brazil. Whitney leaves behind many dear friends and three special friends; Robert (Bobby) Stansberry of Royal, AR, who was his best friend from birth, Edward (Eddie) Matteucci of Great Falls, MT, his childhood friend who always kept Whitney in touch with all news from Great Falls and elsewhere in Montana, and Anne Flynn of Carmel, who kept him in the know regarding all things Carmel and around the world. Whitney would wish that Svetlana Evstifeeva be thanked for her friendship and all the kind and helpful hours she spent with him. He also would wish to tank Tanya Von Ashenberg for her kindness. Both ladies are Lyubov’s dear friends. Popular Lyubov shared many of her friends with Whitney. Whitney would also want to give special appreciation to the very patient and kind Dr. Frederick Ziegler, his longtime psychiatrist. Whitney was very fond of Dr. Ziegler, who always treated him with great dignity and respect. Dr. Ziegler was always there for Whitney and his family in times of great need. Whitney would also wish to thank his caring internist, Dr. Richard King, who saved his life by detecting a severe aneurysm. Also deserving great thanks are Dr. John Benner and Dr. Raymond Shaheen, who performed the life-saving surgery. One last thank you to all of Whitney’s friends, family and people of our community who knew of Whitney’s psychiatric burdens and treated him with love and understanding. Whitney wanted to have an obituary, and hew wanted it to be written by his sister. She spent many wrenching hours pondering whether to share Whitney’s entire story or keep it close to only the family’s heart. It was decided, with the blessing of Whitney’s wife, Lyuba, to tell his story “like it was, ”the unvarnished version”. Whitney’s greatest virtue was honesty, so that is what he would wish, the truth. Many people are now enduring the pain and chaos of having a family member with a mental illness. The hope in sharing Whitney’s story is that it may possibly help others in the same or similar situation to know that a good and productive life can co-exist with all of the pain. Whitney would be honored if everyone who knows his story would treat people who suffer from mental illness, as well as their families, with understanding and respect, and, if close, with love, as well. Rest in Peace, dearly beloved Whitney. When Whitney’s sister, Morley, found out that his obituary would take up two full Herald pages, she was shocked and wanted to cut it back to one-half page or less. She though that two pages looked presumptuous and pretentious, which is the last thing that she would wish. As her husband, I insisted that she not remove a word. It was a promise that she had kept to her beloved brother, and if this story (her tribute) is too long, so be it – Ron Weitzman.