Doris Peyser Slesinger

Slesinger, Doris Peyser Of Madison. Doris Peyser Slesinger, born on December 26, 1927, in Flushing, NY and the only child of Harold and Helene Peyser, died of pancreatic cancer on October 1, 2006 in Madison, WI. She passed away in the compassionate surroundings of Hospice Care. Doris attended the High School of Music and Art in Manhattan, loved it, and played an instrument taller than she - the double bass. At Vassar College, she started in mathematics but switched to the social sciences and graduated in 1949. Doris was extremely busy during the 1950s. She married Jonathan A. Slesinger, moved from New York to Washington, DC, to Ann Arbor, MI, to Milwaukee, WI, held a variety of part-time research jobs and undertook graduate work in sociology at the University of Michigan, where she received the MA in 1960. First in Ann Arbor and later in Milwaukee, she and Jonathan raised their three sons, Jeffrey, David and Paul. Describing herself as a "late starter", in 1970, at the age of 43, she enrolled in the University of Wisconsin's doctoral program in sociology (specializing in demography and medical sociology). Doris spent much of the 3 following years as a graduate student commuting between Milwaukee and the Madison campus, traveling on the Badger Bus, which did double-duty for her as a transport and reading/writing/studying room. She was awarded the PhD in 1973 and joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin's Department of Rural Sociology a year later. She was promoted to full professor in 1984 and was elected department chair in 1987, the first woman chair of a Rural Sociology Department in the United States. This warm and gentle person was an active scholar, an outstanding mentor, and an inspiring teacher. Much of her research and interests focused on the situations and health needs of under-served populations--migrant agricultural workers and the rural poor - as well as on Wisconsin's African Americans and on issues of women's health. Doris conducted over 20 years of research on the health needs of migrant farm workers in Wisconsin, contributing important findings about a population not studied by other researchers. She became a friend of and advocate for migrant workers. She authored or co-authored four books and nearly 100 articles. Drawing on medical and nursing specialists, she wrote a series of over a dozen "Women's Health Brochures." Written in user-friendly prose, in both English and Spanish, they cover an array of topics on women's clinical health issues. About 50,000 copies continue to be distributed annually across the country. Doris had students of both genders as advisees and assistants but devoted special attention to working with, training, and mentoring women. She was honored doubly as a mentor: the University of Wisconsin's Women's Mentoring Program not only selected her as the first recipient of its mentoring award in 1998, but named it the Doris P. Slesinger Outstanding Mentor Award. With her anthropologist husband Edward Wellin, whom she had married in 1976, she spent a year in the Valley of Ica, Peru, doing research on the maternal and child health needs of rural women. The experience gave her a deep appreciation of the commonalities of people, families, and food across cultures. She has served on the University of Wisconsin's Social Studies Executive Committee, the University Academic Planning Council, the Scholastic Policies and Actions Committee, and was Co-Director of the Applied Population Laboratory. Doris also made contributions on the national scene. She was appointed to a number of committees and panels of the National Institutes of Health, the National Research Council, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In 2002, the Rural Sociological Society presented Doris with the Distinguished Rural Sociologist award for lifetime career achievements. Doris retired officially at the age of 70 in 1998 but continued to be academically and professionally active. With two co-authors, she produced the second edition in 2006 of African Americans in Wisconsin. As one of a team of three other retired faculty and academic staff, she served from 2003 to 2006 as an ombuds for faculty and staff across the University of Wisconsin campus. She was a summer resident in Truro, MA on Cape Cod since the 1950s and loved her cottage on N. Pamet Road. Over the years, she visited with family and her grandsons and granddaughters in Seattle, San Francisco, San Diego, Virginia Beach, Las Vegas, Boston, and Truro. She is survived by her husband Edward Wellin (Emeritus Professor); her three sons Jeffrey (Tugboat Captain), David (Clinical Psychologist) and Paul (Professor in Neuroscience); three daughters-in-law, Liz, Marilyn and Margaret; five grandchildren, Nathan, Tim, Christina, Emily and Tommy; and her first husband Jonathan A. Slesinger (Emeritus Professor). She enjoyed embroidery and worked with a group of her former students on several quilt projects, the latter marked as much by laughter as by work. She brought intelligence, honesty, and humor to all her activities and relationships. A memorial service and reception remembering Doris will be held on Friday, November 3, 2006, at 6 PM, at the First Unitarian Society, 900 University Bay Drive, Madison. A private graveside service will be held at the Forest Hill Cemetery on November 4th. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to "In memory of Doris P. Slesinger", HospiceCare, 5395 E. Cheryl Parkway, Madison, WI 53711. Arrangements by Cress Funeral Home, Madison, WI.