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1
SENATE RESOLUTION

 
2    WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois Senate are saddened
3to learn of the death of retired Professor Adriaan Jan de Witte
4of Urbana, who passed away on January 19, 2022; and
 
5    WHEREAS, Professor de Witte was born to Leendert and
6Elizabeth de Witte in Bergen op Zoom, the Province of Brabant,
7Netherlands on January 16, 1924; as a young student, he was
8required to declare allegiance to Hitler's Reich during the
9German occupation of the Netherlands in World War II; he
10refused, choosing instead to flee the Nazi regime to join
11Dutch pacifist war resisters in the Pyrenees Mountains of
12Spain; he was captured by the Gestapo while attempting to exit
13Vichy France and imprisoned in a French provincial jail before
14being shipped by railway to work in a German concentration
15camp; he escaped and traversed eastern Europe on foot to the
16coast of France; he was transported by boat to England, where
17he joined Dutch volunteers in the British Army and served as a
18medic for the rest of the war; and
 
19    WHEREAS, Professor de Witte received honors in Mathematics
20and Physics from the University of Groningen in the
21Netherlands in 1946; he earned his master's degrees in both
22Mathematics and Physics from the University of Leiden in 1948;
23he married Maria E. Boom on November 11, 1948; and
 

 

 

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1    WHEREAS, Professor de Witte first embarked for work in the
2oil business to Indonesia; while he was fascinated by the
3natural world of the tropics, he was repulsed by the human
4misery and conditions of colonial rule; alongside his wife and
5daughter Bette, he emigrated to the United States in 1951; he
6then held a series of research scientist roles, working at
7Shell Oil in Houston, Texas in 1951, Conoco Oil in Ponca City,
8Oklahoma from 1952 to 1955, and at the headquarters of Gulf Oil
9in Harmarville, Pennsylvania from 1955 to 1960; he left the
10corporate oil industry in pursuit of academic freedom; and
 
11    WHEREAS, Professor de Witte became a full professor in the
12Department of Mining, Metallurgy & Petroleum Engineering at
13the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) when he
14was 36 years old; he taught UIUC's first class on world mineral
15economics; he also spent five successive summers as a visiting
16scholar at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Falmouth,
17Massachusetts; he retired in 1987; and
 
18    WHEREAS, Professor de Witte was a keen learner and a free
19thinker; he was raised in the Calvinist tradition; he was
20fluent in many languages, including English, Dutch, French,
21German, Spanish, and Latin, with a passing familiarity of
22Greek and Gaelic; he loved American idioms; he was an avid
23classical music listener and an arts aficionado; he was a

 

 

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1lifelong birdwatcher, and he participated in the Audubon
2Society's annual bird count and camped in Allerton Park to
3count owls; and
 
4    WHEREAS, Above all, Professor de Witte was an activist; he
5supported the civil rights movement in the early 1960s and
6held a weekly silent vigil against the Vietnam War along with a
7handful of fellow protestors in front of the Alma Mater statue
8on the UIUC campus as early as 1965; he remained adamantly
9opposed to all future wars and was a pacifist his entire life;
10and
 
11    WHEREAS, After retirement, Professor de Witte spent many
12summers with family in Nova Scotia, where he passionately
13photographed the "green flash" over the ocean at sunset; he
14was a naturalist and soon became a preservationist, purchasing
1525 acres of woodlands in Cape Breton and deeding them to be
16kept forested in perpetuity; he acquired a 150-year-old Cape
17Cod-style cottage and had it designated a Provincial Heritage
18Property, outfitting it exclusively with antiques mostly from
19central Illinois; he also collected and fixed antique clocks;
20and
 
21    WHEREAS, Professor de Witte was affectionately known as
22"Papa" to his children and "Opa" to his grandchildren; and
 

 

 

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1    WHEREAS, Professor de Witte was preceded in death by his
2wife of 70 years, Maria; his parents; his sister, Janny Roest;
3and his brothers, Rinus and Leendert de Witte; and
 
4    WHEREAS, Professor de Witte is survived by his children,
5Bette Leach (Bob), Maarten (Jill), and Beverly Ann Fraser-de
6Witte; his grandsons, Jesse Fraser (Lindsay McDonald), Seth
7Fraser (Erin McKenzie), and Skylar Denny de Witte; and his
8great-grandchildren, Ewan McDonald-Fraser, William
9McDonald-Fraser, and Thoreau McKenzie-Fraser; therefore, be it
 
10    RESOLVED, BY THE SENATE OF THE ONE HUNDRED SECOND GENERAL
11ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we mourn the passing of
12retired Professor Adriaan Jan de Witte and extend our sincere
13condolences to his family, friends, and all who knew and loved
14him; and be it further
 
15    RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be
16presented to the family of Professor de Witte as an expression
17of our deepest sympathy.