Sidney McLarty Willhelm
Sidney McLarty Willhelm passed on September 30, 2018. He was born in Galveston, Texas to Ernest Virgil Willhelm Sr. and Edythe Owen Harbour Willhelm on October 5, 1934.
Sidney graduated from Ball High School in Galveston, obtained a bachelor, master and doctorate degrees in Sociology from University of Texas in Austin. He was Sociology Professor at San Francisco State University 1960-1962 and Professor of Sociology at University of New York at Buffalo 1962-1990. He retired to reside in Bandera, Texas where he enjoyed his many friends and participated in current activities.
Sidney was preceded in death by his parents, brothers Ernest Virgil Willhelm Jr., Edgar O. Willhelm, and Fred C. Willhelm, and his sister Margaret A. Feistel.
He is survived by his brother Joseph A. Willhelm and wife Elizabeth, sister-in-law Michelle Willhelm, many nieces, nephews, great nieces, great nephews, and many friends.
The family appreciates the care given to Sidney by his niece Lynn Ann Samuelson, the friendship and care given by the residents of Sunset RV Trailer Park in Bandera, especially Guy and Robbie Fusco and the care he received at the Delaney at South Shore in League City, Tx.
Services will be private.
My wife, Sandra, and I want to offer our sincere condolences to Sidney’s family in your loss.
I knew him from our days together at Ball High School, through graduation from the University of Texas. After his retirement, we resumed our friendship when he returned to Texas. A unique and delightful character, his intelligence, wit and love of knowledge was appreciated and admired .
I shall miss our long telephone conversations when we solved the problems of the world.
Sincere condolences go out to the family. Please find comfort and hope in the guarantee that soon death will be no more (Rev. 21: 3, 4) and the exciting promise that those we have lost will be reunited with us again (Acts 24:15 & Psalms 37:29).
My deepest condolences to Sidney’s family, friends and colleagues. Some thirty plus years my senior, he was my friend, mentor, teacher and political ally. In our long conversations, which were always wide-ranging, we covered national and international politics, political-economy, capitalism, racism, homophobia, and, of course, sociology. Ever the teacher, I will miss his many references to classical sociological readings. Gregarious while intensely private, his scholarly work, especially Who Needs the Negro? will stand for as long as we are here: it will continue to inspire us to fulfill the social mission of Martin Luther King Jr., the towering intellectual upon whose shoulders he admittedly stood. “Things are grim”, as Sidney would often say; but his next sentence was always “the struggle is the victory”.
RIP, bro.