Alfred B. Heilbrun Jr.

After early graduation from Huntington Park High School, Al enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps and served in World War II and the Korean War. He attended Oberlin College, where he earned a BA and an MA in psychology. He married Marian Kirkpatrick, whom he met at Oberlin, and they would have celebrated their 72nd anniversary in June. He received a doctoral degree in psychology from the University of Iowa. He held faculty positions at the University of Iowa and Emory University (and was a visiting faculty member for a year at the University of California at Berkeley).

Al was a distinguished clinical psychologist who was involved in research and scholarship, teaching and training, and practice over a career that spanned four decades. His research included various areas: counseling readiness, severe mental illness (schizophrenia), sex roles, and criminality and violence. He published multiple books, articles, and chapters, often co-authored with his graduate student trainees from the Iowa and Emory years. All five of his children had the chance to serve as research assistants to, and co-authors with, their dad. He had numerous faculty colleagues who were also good friends—and who looked on him as a mentor and a role model. They remembered lunches at Cox Hall, time on the handball court, and a poker game that spanned 40 years. They described integrity and a fundamental sense of decency, and talked about how he made a difference in their lives. He helped his faculty colleagues develop into beloved curmudgeons, just as he had.

Al was an avid sportsman who excelled in tennis, handball, and wearing out his beloved rowing machine. He was a loyal fan of the Iowa Hawkeyes, the Atlanta Braves, the Atlanta Falcons, and the Texas Longhorns. He loved his family and traveling, and was never happier than when he was traveling with them. Al is survived by a large, loving family, including his wife Marian, his children Kirk Heilbrun (Patty Griffin), Lynn Stahl, Kim Heilbrun, Leigh Hines (Michael), and Mark Heilbrun (Amy), as well as fourteen grandchildren and thirteen great-grandchildren. He is also survived by generations of faculty colleagues and students, both graduate and undergraduate, whose lives he touched.

We celebrate an extraordinary, loving life, and feel so fortunate to have been a part of it. A private memorial service will be held for him in Dripping Springs later this year.