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Obituary: Ted Greenfield

Theodore John Greenfield MA’75, PhD’86 passed away on July 6, 2021. Ted was born in Minneapolis in 1938 to Ted and Gudrun (Aasgaard) Greenfield and spent his youth in Cokato, Minnesota, with his siblings Susan, Stephen, and Elizabeth. He attended St. Olaf College and Luther Seminary and earned an MA in history at University of Minnesota–Duluth. He completed his PhD in history of science at UW–Madison in 1986, with a dissertation titled “Variation, Heredity, and Scientific Explanation in the Evolutionary Theories of Four American Neo-Lamarckians, 1867–1897.” In recent years, he enjoyed teaching courses with the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at the University of Minnesota and made daily library visits to read up on Darwin, the French Revolution, and the history of Rome. Friends and relatives will remember Ted as a lifelong learner himself, always warmhearted and deeply inquisitive. He is survived by his daughters, Kristin and Ingrid (also a UW alum), and his sister Elizabeth.

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