
{"id":597,"date":"2007-07-19T05:40:26","date_gmt":"2007-07-19T13:40:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2007\/07\/19\/obituary-roy-elmer-sommerfeld\/"},"modified":"2007-07-19T05:40:26","modified_gmt":"2007-07-19T13:40:26","slug":"obituary-roy-elmer-sommerfeld","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2007\/07\/19\/obituary-roy-elmer-sommerfeld\/","title":{"rendered":"Obituary &#8211; Roy Elmer Sommerfeld"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Roy Elmer Sommerfeld passed away peacefully, surrounded by his family, at UNC Hospitals, 11 July 2007.\u00c2\u00a0 He was born 8 May 1914 in Benton Harbor, Michigan.\u00c2\u00a0 His parents were Conrad Lewis and Amelia (Maikowski) Sommerfeld.\u00c2\u00a0 His siblings, Kenneth W. (Aina), Elmer A. (Margaret) and Irma L. Rode (Ed, deceased) all predeceased him.<\/p>\n<p>Roy received his bachelor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s degree from Western State Teachers College (now Western Michigan University) in 1937.\u00c2\u00a0 He began his teaching career at Edwardsburg High School, Edwardsburg, MI.\u00c2\u00a0 He moved to Ann Arbor, MI, in 1940 to begin graduate studies at the University of Michigan.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>In February 1941, he was drafted into the United States Army, serving at Ft. Eustis (Williamsburg), VA, Camp Davis, NC and Ft. Sheridan (Highland Park), IL before being shipped overseas.\u00c2\u00a0 While on Christmas leave, he married Emma E. Kedney in Ann Arbor, on 6 January, 1942.\u00c2\u00a0 At Ft. Sheridan, his family was enlarged by the arrival of a daughter, Martha Lucille, in 1943.\u00c2\u00a0 He served with distinction as the commander of an anti-aircraft squadron in the South Pacific, returning to the US in 1946, when he was discharged as a captain.<\/p>\n<p>He then re-entered the University of Michigan to resume his graduate studies. While in Ann Arbor, sons Roy Thomas arrived in 1948 and William Peter in 1950.\u00c2\u00a0 Roy received his PhD in Educational Psychology in 1952.\u00c2\u00a0 Roy sang in the University of Michigan Men\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Glee Club, the Choral Union and the church choir.<\/p>\n<p>The family then moved to Stillwater, OK, where he served on the faculty of Oklahoma A &amp; M (now Oklahoma State University).\u00c2\u00a0 While in Oklahoma, he officiated baseball, basketball and football, as well as an occasional track meet.\u00c2\u00a0 He also performed in local theater productions.\u00c2\u00a0 The family tent camped in Colorado frequently, venturing to Mesa Verde, the Petrified Forest, and Zion, Bryce and Grand Canyons.<\/p>\n<p>In 1956 the family moved to Chapel Hill, where Roy joined the faculty of the School of Education at UNC.\u00c2\u00a0 He taught Educational Psychology, Testing and Measurements and several other classes.\u00c2\u00a0 He served (or chaired) several dissertations committees.<\/p>\n<p>He retired from UNC in 1979 as a full professor.\u00c2\u00a0 While teaching at the university, he continued officiating basketball and football through the 1960s.<\/p>\n<p>Roy was a charter member of the Chapel Hill Civitan Club, serving as secretary, bulletin editor and president, as well as district candy box chair, district fruit cake chair and area lieutenant governor.\u00c2\u00a0 He and his wife attended many Civitan International conventions around the world.\u00c2\u00a0 They also traveled extensively outside the country for pleasure.\u00c2\u00a0 The family continued camping on the coast and in the NC mountains.\u00c2\u00a0 Roy was an active member of the choir at University United Methodist Church.\u00c2\u00a0 He frequently served as soloist and bass section leader and sometimes substitute director.\u00c2\u00a0 He was an outstanding gardener and woodworker.<\/p>\n<p>He is survived by his children, Marti Hearron (Art, deceased), Tom (Elinore) and Pete.\u00c2\u00a0 Also surviving are a sister-in-law, Aina Summerfelt, and several nieces and nephews.<\/p>\n<p>Cremation has already taken place.\u00c2\u00a0 A memorial service was held at University United Methodist Church in Chapel Hill, 15 July 2007 at 3 pm.\u00c2\u00a0 In lieu of flowers, please make a donation to the Boys &amp; Girls Home of NC, the music fund at the University United Methodist Church, the Hearron\/Sommerfeld Scholarship in Musical Theatre Performance at Western Michigan University, the University of Michigan Library or the charity of your choice.<\/p>\n<p>Arrangements by the Cremation Society of the Carolinas.\u00c2\u00a0 Online condolences: www.cremnc.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Roy Elmer Sommerfeld passed away peacefully, surrounded by his family, at UNC Hospitals, 11 July 2007.\u00c2\u00a0 He was born 8 May 1914 in Benton Harbor, Michigan.\u00c2\u00a0 His parents were Conrad Lewis and Amelia (Maikowski) Sommerfeld.\u00c2\u00a0 His siblings, Kenneth W. (Aina), Elmer A. (Margaret) and Irma L. Rode (Ed, deceased) all predeceased him. Roy received his&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-obituaries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}