Birth date: Apr 13, 1921 Death date: Mar 27, 2016
Professor Joseph Gustav Hirschberg passed away on Sunday, March 27 peacefully at home. He was born in Chicago, Illinois on April 13, 1921 to Lillian Kahn Hirschberg and Joseph G. Hirschberg, Sr. He attended Dartmouth College and g Read Obituary
Dear Anne, Lynn, Joe and Judy:
Please accept deepest condolences from Linda Hinnov and Ji Ji Landon, daughter and former wife of Joe’s colleague Einar Hinnov. We want to share some - out of countless - recollections with you:
Your father was a key figure in our lives, critically shaping Einar’s career by hiring him into Princeton’s Forrestal Research Laboratory in 1959, and bringing our families together during those early years, and for many years afterward when you moved to Coral Gables.
My (Linda) life and career was also deeply influenced by Joe. In 1966 (I was 9), Joe took us out on his new cabin cruiser to Biscayne Bay. When taking in the view there, Joe talked about a colleague studying phytoplankton chemistry in ocean sediment, and that it recorded past climate change; I was deeply impressed. Later in college I realized that Joe had been talking about Cesare Emiliani; I wrote a term paper about Emiliani’s research, and decided to become a paleoclimatologist. Joe knows this, because in 1985, I visited Joe and Ginette, and reminded him of that boat outing. He responded by calling Cesare and arranging lunch with him. Ultimately I didn’t go to Miami, but I did pursue my dream, and today I am a professor of paleoclimatology at George Mason University. This all sprang from Joe.
Joe inspired Einar to take up SCUBA diving, and introduced us to basic diving equipment in your Coral Gables pool. Einar avidly pursued the sport, and for the next 5 years (1969-1974) we went to the Keys for every vacation to dive in Pennecamp State Park – also introduced to us by Joe. Einar continued to dive all over the world until he was struck down by his own illness (brain tumor) in 1989.
In 1974, Joe and Ginette invited us to use their Paris apartment during spring vacation. They picked us up in the driving rain from the train station, pointed out various historical sights on the way to their place, when miraculously the Sun suddenly started to shine; then they left for their own vacation. This gave us a fantastic week steeped in the Parisian way of life that we would otherwise never have experienced, and we have never forgotten this generosity.
Joe’s passing has once again reminded us how he figured so heavily in the arc of our lives. We are struck by the constant joy we have had in knowing Joe. We had not kept up in recent years, but this has no bearing on the deep significance he has had on our lives. We hope that our appreciation brings comfort to you in your loss.
Love,
Linda and JiJi
