OBITUARY: Dr. Alec Danylevich, neurosurgeon, community activist
by George Powch
WORCESTER, Mass. - The Ukrainian American community lost one of its finest on April 14 in Worcester, Mass., when Alec Danylevich passed on after a heroic battle with cancer.
He was a man of many talents: a renowned neurosurgeon in the Worcester area, devoted husband of Louise Feldhaus, loving father of twin daughters Laryssa and Natalia, and dear brother to an extended clan including sisters Irene Billon, with husband Slavko, of Newark, Del.; Angelina Grundhoff, with husband George, of Reading, Mass.; and a twin brother, the Very Rev. Wladimir Danylevich, married to Anna, of Kensington, Md.
He is survived by 12 nieces, nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews.
Dr. Danylevich was a pillar of the Ukrainian American community in the greater Boston area and of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church in America.
Born July 16, 1947, in Kempten, Germany, he was the fourth child of the Very Rev. John Danylevich, who came from a long line of distinguished Ukrainian Orthodox clergy from Volyn. The family emigrated to the U.S. in 1949, where Dr. Danylevich's father was first assigned to concurrently lead the Ukrainian Orthodox Parishes in Bakerton and Dixonville, Pa., and later in Herkimer, N.Y.
Dr. Danylevich's formative years, however, were in Boston, where the family settled in 1952 when his father was transferred to lead St. Andrew Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Jamaica Plains.
He excelled at Boston's renowned Latin High School, which led directly to Harvard University. At Harvard, he was one of the organizers of the Boston-Cambridge Ukrainian Students Club in the late 1960s and was involved in the genesis of what has become today the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute.
He went on to medical school at Dartmouth and then George Washington University, followed by an extended residency in neurosurgery at New York Hospital (Cornell).
During those years, he was actively involved in various Ukrainian student events, engaged in student campaigns of the time, such as the movement to free Valentyn Moroz and other writers, poets and artists expressing liberal or nationalist sentiments who had been incarcerated by the repressive Soviet regime. And, he was a fixture on the Ukrainian American social circuit.
On completing his residency, Dr. Danylevich joined a practice in Worcester, Mass., where he stayed and built a very distinguished career. He was assistant professor of surgery at University of Massachusetts Medical School, and chief of neurosurgery, first at Memorial Hospital and later at St. Vincent's Hospital at Worcester Medical Center.
He married Louise Feldhaus, a radiologist, and they raised twin daughters, Laryssa and Natalia, in a home filled with love, joy and no end of artifacts of Dr. Danylevich's Ukrainian heritage.
A longtime members of St. Andrew Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Boston, Dr. Danylevich was a founder in 1990 of the Father John Danylevich Foundation, and its first president. The foundation has been very successful in providing diverse humanitarian aid to the needy in Ukraine, and Dr. Danylevich was continually involved and a strong supporter of this and many other Ukrainian causes.
In life, Dr. Danylevich was compelling: brilliant and brash, quick-witted and very opinionated, fiercely protective of his family and proud of his heritage, yet modest and self-effacing, and generous to a fault.
He was a deeply religious and spiritual man, and sought solace in his faith as sickness consumed him. He faced the end fearlessly, confident in what lay before him. He declined artificial measures to prolong his life, and medications to ease his discomfort, wishing the sensation of being alive not be diminished in the slightest, despite the pain that it meant. He suffered stoically, giving few if any signs to those around him, and setting an example of grace and dignity in death.
He was interred in the mausoleum at St. Andrew Ukrainian Orthodox Cemetery in South Bound Brook, N.J., on April 19 with family and friends in attendance, after extended funeral services the prior day in Worcester, Mass. He leaves behind a large legacy in the lives of the people he touched.
Memorial donations may be sent to: St. Andrew's Ukrainian Orthodox Society, 1023 Yorkshire Drive, Los Altos, CA 94024.
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, May 7, 2006, No. 19, Vol. LXXIV
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