Lillian B. Miller '43

Renowned art historian and scholar Lillian B. Miller '43 died of a cerebral hemorrhage on Nov. 27 at the age of 74.

Miller's main intellectual pursuit was the study of 20th-century American culture, art and literature. Among numerous teaching positions, she was an art history professor at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee and a historian at the National Portrait Gallery.

"Academics was her life," said Nathan Miller, her husband of 49 years. "It meant thought. It meant being with students. It meant the hashing out of ideas. It meant assimilating American culture. It was the essence of her life, the pursuit of ideas."

Miller wrote several volumes on the Peale family of artists. Her scholarly attention greatly augmented the reputation of the previously-unrecognized family, leading to the $4 million sale of a portrait by Rembrant Peale in 1986.

The first member of her family to go to college, Miller commuted from Mattapan and worked her way through Radcliffe as a secretary.

John Thomas Patterson

Former resident tutor and non-resident history tutor of Mather House John Thomas Patterson died Oct. 9. Patterson, who was 45, died of AIDS-related complications.

"I was very proud of him. He was everything you would ever want in a son," said his mother, Mildred R. Patterson.

Mather House Master Sandra A. Naddaff said Patterson would be deeply missed. "I think every once in a while a House is lucky enough to have a person like John," she said. "He was very involved in the life of the undergraduates."

Jeffrey P. Moran, a resident tutor in Mather, said Patterson was "an intellectual and social role model."

"He was very up-front about being gay," he said. "He really wanted to be an example to students who were gay, but also to students who weren't."

Patterson's involvement in the Harvard community stretched back into the mid '70s when Patterson was a proctor at Matthews Hall and a teaching fellow at the College.

William G. Perry '35

William G. Perry '35, founder of the Bureau of Study Council (BSC) and professor of education emeritus, died in January of pneumonia at Brigham and Women's Hospital. He was 84.