Alan Agol

Alan Agol
Alan Agol, retired teacher-counselor of San Rafael, died on September 24th, 2005 at Marin General Hospital of cardiac failure. Mr. Agol, age 80, was a native Californian, born in 1925 in Los Angeles. After graduation from Beverly Hills High School, he attended UCLA for three years before being drafted into the U.S. Army. Mr. Agol served as managing editor of the "Daily Pacifican", the Army newspaper for the Southwest Pacific. In 1947, he returned to UCLA to complete his B.A. and stayed on till 1950 to do graduate work. He married Pauline Stocker in 1950 and adopted Pauline's son, Stanley. Pauline died after a long illness in 1967. From 1950 until 1969, Mr. Agol was an English teacher and counselor for Junior class boys at Visalia High School, in California. He developed a program for gifted minors, conducting a Humanities class taught in the early morning to students from two high schools, in addition to his five English classes and two counseling periods. In 1969, Mr. Agol married Eleanor Neal of San Rafael. In 1970, he accepted a job at Drake High School, San Anselmo, where he taught English half day and counseled the other half, retiring in 1980.
Mr. Agol was a longtime contributor to the San Francisco Opera and regularly attended full seasons. At the age of 70, he copyrighted a puzzle type he created called OperaKrostiks, creating 77 examples of which 27 have been printed in "Opera Quarterly" produced by the Oxford University Press. Together with two other opera lovers, Mr. Agol participated in presenting week- long opera seminars in the mountains for members of the Sierra Club. During his retirement, Mr. Agol resumed duplicate bridge play after a hiatus of 19 years and became a Life Master in 1993, later a Silver Life Master (1500 master points) and in 2002 a Gold Life Master (2500 master points). Mr. Agol was an avid reader; classical music and art lover; theatre, film, and travel buff.
His beloved second wife of 29 years, Eleanor, died in 1998.
Mr. Agol is survived by twin grandsons, Ian Agol, a mathematician, and Eric Agol, an astrophysicist, Eric's wife, Lea; Mr. Agol's son, Stanley Agol; his daughter-in-law, Maureen Snyder and her husband, Al Snyder; Eleanor's daughter, Marcia Kent and her husband, Steve; two granddaughters, Alicia Kent and Janeen Swan and their respective spouses, Joshua Rossol and Jeff Swan, and by a great-granddaughter, Jada Swan.
The family requests that, in lieu of flowers, consider making contributions in memory of Alan Agol to the following: "Lupus Foundation of America, Inc.", LFA, P.O. Box 631047, Baltimore, MD 21263-1047 or donate online at www.lupus.org.
Merola Opera Program, War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94102-4509.
A Memorial will be held on Sunday, November 20th, 2005 at 2:00 p.m. at Crossley Center, 18 Greenbrae Boardwalk, Greenbrae, 415.461.3171.