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Summer 2015
Back to Class with…
SamWestmoreland
Samuel D. Westmoreland ’66 is taking it easier than he
would like, but he’s OK with that.
Not that his life hasn’t been full since he retired from
the Department of Anthropology and Sociology in 2007.
Family, volunteer work with KU, an interest that
became a part-time vocation, he handled all this while
coping with a chronic illness.
With three daughters, nine grandchildren and seven
great-grandchildren, Westmoreland and his wife Mary,
who is semi-retired from a nursing career, have plenty of
familial obligations that they love.
“A lot of my time is spent taking care of them,”Sam said.
And they don’t all live close by.
While their
oldest daughter,Diana,
lives in Reading, next door to
Shillington, where the Westmoreland’s
live, Lesia lives in Delaware, and Samara, the
youngest, lives in Cortland, New York.
Spending time with all of them is always on the couple’s
agenda, so they take time to visit periodically.
Family matters recently took on more urgency, when
Samara gave birth to twins who were born prematurely,
at 26 weeks.
“It was a humbling experience, a tearful one when you
look at the children in incubators with wires hooked up
to them,”Westmoreland said. “One was only a little bit
bigger than my hand.Thankfully, they both survived and
are doing well.”
To relax, he and Mary take cruise vacations and short
trips, often combined with a visit to one of their children
and their family.
“We went to the Caribbean,” he said, “and we’re plan-
ning on Hawaii and Alaska in the next couple of years.”
Westmoreland has maintained close ties with some-
thing else he cares about: KU, where he earned his B.S.
in social studies in 1966, and joined the faculty in 1971.
“I’m a member of the KU Alumni and Foundation
Boards,” he said.
One committee in which he is happy to be involved is
the foundation’s budget and audit committee.
He underscored the importance of the committee,
given the impact of cuts in state funding.
Westmoreland also has an abiding fascination with
financial matters, which he traces to an interest in
mathematics that was shunted aside when he opted
to enter the field of sociology.
“I was always interested in history and math,”
Westmoreland said, “and when I was first going to
school and talked to counselors, they said, ‘History,’
which then became social studies. But I really liked
math, and I’m sorry I didn’t go into that field.”
Still, he found a way to engage with people and
numbers at the same time: with the KU Foundation
budget and audit committee for example, but also
in private enterprise.
“One of the areas I was fascinated with was tax
preparation,” he said, “so when I retired in summer
of 2007, I started taking tax preparation courses,
and I’ve been working with H&R Block — until
this year, when it became too much for me.”
Although Westmoreland is 70, the tipping point
was not age but sarcoidosis, a chronic disease he
has been battling since 1983.
“They don’t know what causes it, but it can attack
any organ in your body,” he said. “Symptoms include
fatigue and weakness in the muscle. For the most
part people have it in their lungs.
“I had it in my eyes. It can cause blindness, but I
was lucky enough that they caught it in 1983 and
prevented me from going blind.
“I’ve had skin problems, heart problems, and it
attacked my lymph glands and nervous system.
I had problems walking, and with my lungs, and I
went through three bouts of pulmonary embolism
and survived.
“I lost the sense of smell and sense of taste in
1985,” he said, noting that the olfactory sense never
returned, but he did regain some of his ability to taste.
“It’s a frustrating disease because you never know
when it will become active again or go into remis-
sion,” he said.
Nevertheless, Westmoreland peppers his conver-
sation with laughter and expressions of gratitude.
He’s had to give up a number of things — deep
sea fishing, tennis, basketball, for instance — but he
is thankful for the support of his wife of almost 40
years, Mary, and her nursing skills.
“One of the treatments for the disease is steroids,
and they have their own set of symptoms,” he said.
“She helps me out a lot, making sure I take my
medication and don’t overdo it.
“I still think I’m young,” he said, laughing, “and I
still go out and try.”
By
félix
alfonsopeña
photographyby
BradDrey