Friends remember Pitt English professor at memorial service

Jeff Aziz has fond memories of receiving somewhat mutilated papers back from professor… Jeff Aziz has fond memories of receiving somewhat mutilated papers back from professor Richard Tobias after being graded. Tobias’ comments about the paper would be typed in the black ink of a typewriter and some characters – especially the period at the end of a statement – would often be punched right through the paper.

Aziz, a graduate student at Pitt, attributes these period-shaped holes in his paper to Tobias’s passion for all things literary.

“He shared your enthusiasm for your own work,” he said Tuesday afternoon at a memorial service for his former professor in front of a nearly full house at Heinz Chapel. The date would have marked Tobias’ 81st birthday.

Tobias, better known to most as “Tob,” died on Sept. 12 because of complications with cancer surgery. He had worked in Pitt’s English department since 1957.

Repeatedly remembered as a man who prided himself in his relationships – with his deceased wife, his three children, grandchildren, colleagues and students alike – Tobias was never too busy to stop and chat about life, work or projects with the people he knew.

“I’ve seen him in a conversation with a 9-year-old about a book he was reading with utmost respect and without a trace of condescension,” Aziz said.

Tobias’ enthusiasm was not confined to literature, poetry and writing, which he was most recognized for. He was a World War II veteran and an avid baseball fan who bought season tickets to the Pirates games each year. Theater, music and dancing were also large influences on his life.

“He was by far the best dancer in the English department,” remembered English department chair David Bartholomae with a laugh.

Bartholomae remembers Tobias as a professor who taught his students to write when they had something to say and was unwilling to accept anything mediocre. From the day that he entered Pitt’s English department, he said, Tobias wanted to improve both the department and his own teaching.

“He loved what he was doing with an impulsive, almost scary energy,” Bartholomae said.

Tobias was a member of Pitt’s Senate for more than 40 years and was its president for two terms. Sean Hughes, who worked alongside him and is a professor in Pitt’s School of Education, said his colleague would always fight for what he felt was right, regardless of how the administration felt.

“He ardently defended academic freedom,” Hughes said.

Three poems were read in memory of Tobias as an interlude to the memorial service.

Before reading “Outbound” by L.E. Sissman, Michael Helfand of the English department said that the poem spoke to Tobias’ “ability to see good, even in dark circumstances.”

Chris Rawson read John Donne’s “A Valediction: Forbidding Mourning.”

“It forbids mourning,” he said. “And how could we mourn a life with such fullness?”

Tobias was the first person Rawson met in 1967 when he first interviewed at Pitt. After getting to know him, Rawson saw his colleague as a man who lived life for all that it was worth.

“Tob lived with such a passion and zest for life that no one poem, or three poems, could sum him up,” Rawson said.

Tobias began a relationship with the University of Augsburg in Germany in the mid-1990s. He became a frequent guest professor and speaker at the university and his last stint as a professor overseas was just this past summer.

Klaus-Dieter Post, from the University of Augsburg, spoke about Tobias’ intellectual energy and personality that charmed his students.

“He was an ingenious player of words, a man full of songs and stories, and he had a great and generous heart,” Post said.

And it was his storytelling and letter-writing that his friends and family will best be able to remember Tobias by. His daughter, Emily Tobias Profitt, said that she just recently began reading the correspondence between her father and other family members – letters that had been stored away and now provide her with a picture of what her father was like even before she was old enough to remember for herself.

“His storytelling abilities led him to be the family communicator,” she said before reading an excerpt from a letter written by Tobias about Profitt’s birth.

“My dad was a wonderful man and I am extremely proud of him,” Profitt said. “He was my best friend.”