In Memoriam

Susan Stoner Jones ’63, Naples, Fla., Oct. 15, 2025, at age 84. Generous gifts from Susan and her husband, University Trustee Dan Jones ’61, over many years have benefited Northwestern Libraries, Athletics and Recreation, and other areas across the University. Susan graduated from Northwestern in 1963 with a degree in art history and was a member of the Pi Beta Phi sorority. She then moved to New York to pursue a degree in nursing at Columbia University, where she met Dan. Susan completed her nursing degree in 1966 and worked as a nurse before leaving the field to raise three children and assist with the family’s newspaper archiving business, NewsBank. In the first few months, Susan worked in the couple’s bedroom, creating microfiche masters to preserve newspaper articles, and ultimately transforming the company into a leading provider of digitized newspaper articles that provides online archives of thousands of newspapers, broadcast transcripts and other publications. The Joneses’ two daughters, Kathryn “Katie” Cavanagh ’91 and Meredith “Maggie” Jones, are both NewsBank executives. Their son, Daniel, served as president of NewsBank’s consumer division before his passing in January 2024. The Joneses have been devoted Northwestern Wildcats fans for decades, supporting the University’s student-athletes through the Otto Graham Society. The couple established the Dan and Susan Jones Family Head Football Coach endowment in 2006 and gifted more than $32 million in databases to Northwestern’s library system. They also served as co-chairs of the Florida Regional Campaign Committee, Gift Planning Campaign Committee and Libraries Campaign Committee for We Will. The Campaign for Northwestern. Susan was a longtime leader of the NU Club of Greater Naples and a member of the Women’s Board of Northwestern University and served on her 45th, 50th and 55th Reunion Committees. She is survived by her husband, her daughters and eight grandchildren.

Read the full obituary for Susan Stoner Jones.

James “Jim” Mitchell ’78 MS, Carrollton, Texas, Oct. 7, 2025, at age 71. A 41-year veteran of The Dallas Morning News (The News), Mitchell was a business journalist, specializing in social, political and financial trends. After earning his master’s degree at Northwestern, he began his journalism career at the Times-Union in Rochester, N.Y. In 1984 he joined The News as a business news reporter and then joined the paper’s editorial board in 1998. Described by his colleagues as someone “on the vanguard of a new era of business [reporting] in the 1980s,” Mitchell wrote editorials about U.S. politics, energy independence, immigration, the racial wealth gap, privacy and cybersecurity, economic inequality, and crime and punishment, among other topics. Mitchell met Nelson Mandela while traveling in South Africa, a moment he considered the most memorable of his career. Described by his colleagues as man of “deep conscience and empathy, a truth seeker and fact finder,” Mitchell retired as a senior editorial writer at The News in 2025. He is survived by his wife, Verna, and their son, Matthew. 

Photo Credit: Courtesy of The Dallas Morning News

Nancy Poore ’91 MA, Elgin, Ill., July 27, 2025, at age 85. A feminist activist, writer and publisher, Poore was a pioneer of the women-in-print movement. In 1973 she co-founded Helaine Victoria Press in Santa Monica, Calif., using a vintage letterpress to publish stories and images of little-known heroines. The press, a founding member of the U.S. Alliance of Lesbian and Feminist Printers, printed postcards showcasing women from diverse racial and socioeconomic backgrounds, as well as images of the labor, suffrage and temperance movements. Poore became interested in social justice and feminism while living in California during the ’60s and ’70s. She left Helaine Victoria Press in 1981 and moved to Chicago, where she ran a design, research and writing business. She earned a master’s degree in English from Northwestern and worked at what is now the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. In 2005 Poore and her partner, Christine Johnson, moved to Michigan, where they owned vacation rental cottages and ran a kayak rental operation. Johnson died in 2015. Poore is survived by cousins Lois, Celia and Marilyn and nephews Ben and Edwin. 

Thomas Z. Hayward Jr. ’62, ’65 JD, Naples, Fla., July 24, 2025, at age 85. A life trustee, Hayward was president of the Northwestern Alumni Association from 1976 to 1980 and chaired or co-chaired numerous Reunion committees for the class of 1962. He was vice chair of the Northwestern Board of Trustees from 2000 to 2009 and chair of its Alumni Relations and Development Committee from 2000 to 2010. From 1998 to 2003 Hayward co-chaired Campaign Northwestern, which raised over $1.5 billion, and he later served as co-chair of several committees for We Will. The Campaign for Northwestern, the largest fundraising initiative in University history. Hayward was honored with an Alumni Service Award in 1974 and a Northwestern Alumni Medal, the highest distinction awarded to alumni, in 2012. An expert in land-use and general corporate law, Hayward retired from K&L Gates in 2013 after working at numerous Chicago law firms. He is survived by his wife, Sally Madden Hayward ’61; sons Thomas Hayward III ’89, ’93 MBA, MD, Wallace Hayward ’90 and University Trustee Robert Hayward ’94, ’97 JD; 10 grandchildren; and several other relatives. 

Roger Dennis ’71, ’74 JD, Cherry Hill, N.J., July 17, 2025, at age 75. Dennis shaped antitrust policy in the U.S. and had his work cited by the U.S. Supreme Court. He served as dean of the Rutgers University–Camden School of Law for six years before becoming the Rutgers–Camden provost. In 2007 he helped found the Drexel University Thomas R. Kline School of Law and served 10 years as dean. Earlier in his career, Dennis was a special assistant to the assistant attorney general in the antitrust division of the U.S. Department of Justice and deputy staff director of President Jimmy Carter’s National Commission for the Review of Antitrust Laws and Procedures. As a law student at Northwestern, Dennis was senior editor of the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology. He is survived by his wife, Deborah Ellis Dennis ’72; children Andrew and Ethan; a sister, Paula; and grandchildren Elizabeth and Harry. 

Photo Credit: Rutgers Law School

D. Cameron Findlay III ’82, Chicago, July 11, 2025, at age 65. A respected attorney and public servant, Findlay served as general counsel for three Fortune 500 companies — Aon Corp., Medtronic and Archer Daniels Midland Co. After earning a bachelor of arts in political science, Findlay attended New College at the University of Oxford as a Marshall Scholar, receiving a master’s degree in philosophy, politics and economics. He went on to earn his law degree from Harvard Law School in 1987. Early in his career he clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and held senior positions in two presidential administrations, including as deputy secretary of labor under President George W. Bush. Findlay served as a University trustee for more than 25 years. During the 1990s he taught as an adjunct professor in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. He and his wife, Amy Scalera Findlay, established the Cameron and Amy Findlay Undergraduate Research Fund to support Northwestern students’ summer research projects and the Cameron and Amy Findlay Fellowship, which supports recent Northwestern graduates studying in the United Kingdom. Findlay is survived by his wife; his sons, Alexander Findlay ’14 and Mac; his mother, Judy; his sister, Anne Findlay Vail ’86; his brother, David; and several nieces and nephews.  

Patricia Louis Peterson ’48, New York City, June 15, 2025, at age 99. As fashion editor of The New York Times from 1957 to 1977, Peterson chronicled shifting trends in hemlines and the rise of pantsuits, tie-dye and other fashion evolutions as measures of societal change. She frequently collaborated with her husband, photographer Gösta Peterson, on visually bold editorial shoots. In 1967, for example, she oversaw Fashions of The Times’ groundbreaking cover photo by Gösta featuring Naomi Sims — the first Black model to appear on the cover of a major American fashion magazine. (Fashions of The Times was a seasonal section of The New York Times Magazine.) In 1977 Peterson took on an executive marketing role at Henri Bendel, a women’s department store in New York City. There, she and her husband created whimsical, eye-catching ads that often ran in the Sunday edition of The Times. An art theory and practice major at Northwestern, Peterson was fashion editor for The Purple Parrot student magazine and began her career at Marshall Field & Company before joining Mademoiselle in New York City. Later in life, she served as a docent at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, working at its Costume Institute until 2015. She is survived by her children, Annika and Jan; and Jan’s wife, Lori Barrett-Peterson ’93 MA/MS.