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Frederick H. Hollander (1915–2000)

Published onDec 01, 2001
Frederick H. Hollander (1915–2000)

Frederick Hollander was a member of the AAS for most of his life. Born in New York City on 31 January 1915, he entered Columbia University at an early age and studied astronomy there. In 1934 he received his BA and in 1936, his MA degree. At Columbia he became interested in the methods of computing developed by Eckert and Brouwer. Using punched cards on IBM equipment there, he corrected the orbit of the asteroid Herculina. The results of his research were published in the The Astronomical Journal, Vol. 46, No. 1070, 17 August 1937. It's the only known paper that Hollander published in astronomy. At Yale he continued his graduate studies until 1941. During the 1940s Hollander worked at the United States Naval Observatory, where he met Blanche Roxalana White, a fellow astronomer, whom he married on 23 June 1945 in Arlington, Virginia. In 1950 the Hollanders moved to the west coast where he began his life career as a both a mathematician and counseling psychologist at the University of California in Los Angeles. In the Department of Mathematics there, he was in the Numerical Analysis Research Unit and superivised graduate students who worked with him on the SWAC.

After his retirement in 1976, Hollander and his wife moved from California to Lacomb, Oregon, where they enjoyed participating in community activities. They joined the First Presbyterian Church in nearby Lebanon, Oregon where they served as elders and played in the handbell choir. They also enjoyed gardening and perusing their library of art and astronomy books. At the time of his death on 30 May 2000, Hollander was engaged in one of his favorite activities: he was comparing translations of Newton's Principia and was found in bed with two editions of it on his chest.

He is survived by his sister, Emma Kernan, of Delray Beach, Florida; six grandchildren, three great-grandchildren, and his five sons: Frederick of Oakland, California; William of Otis, Oregon; Robert of Tasmania, Australia; James of Altadena, California; and Patrick of Beaverton, Oregon. His wife, Blanche, had predeceased him in February 1996.

Most of the facts for this obituary were gleaned from online obituaries published by two Oregon newspapers: The Lebanon Express and The Corvallis Gazette-Times. Some details were supplied by family members, Emma Kernan and James Hollander; by the AAS Membership Department; and by HAD member, Peter Abrahams.

Photograph courtesy of Sue Hollander

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