Leon John ROOS

21 OCT 1943 - OCT 2022

• BIRTH: 21 OCT 1943, Houston, Harris County, TX
• DEATH: OCT 2022, Nashville, TN

INDEX

[N33459] Leon John Roos Jr
October 21, 1943 - 2022

I wanted to share the sad news that my father, Professor Leon John Roos Jr. passed away at home after a long battle with uveal melanoma, comforted the entire time by his loving wife of 53 years, Martha Carole Cathcart Roos. He passed on his 79th Birthday. Professor Roos had two children, Eleanor and Andrew, and one granddaughter Margaret. He was born in Houston, Texas on October 21, 1943, went to Notre Dame in the fall of 1961 and graduated magna cum laude in 1965. He returned to Notre Dame to start a teaching career in 1969 that would last for the next 44 years. From 1965 - 1969, he studied in the department of political science at the University of Chicago (AM'69, PhD'71) writing his dissertation on “Natural Law and Natural Right In Thomas Aquinas And Aristotle.” He retired to Nashville in 2014 and lived there with Carole until his passing. He was the oldest of the six children of Leon John Roos Sr, and Ethel Aiken. He was predeceased by his younger sister Sue and is survived by younger siblings David, LaVeta, Stephen and Patti. In addition to his family, Professor Roos will be remembered for many things, first and foremost his commitment to the community around him. A winner of multiple awards for his teaching and mentorship, he took great pride in each students' learning, development, and well-being. Professor Roos carried with him a certain intellectual intensity that he shared with generations of students. He would devour the texts he was teaching with the same curiosity and energy in his last semester teaching as in his first, often needing to collect himself and get over the pit of nerves in his stomach before walking into class as if each one was a national championship game. He was similarly invested in the development of his colleagues, the Department of Government and growth of the Politics, Philosophy, and Economics concentration. While in Hospice, the homecare worker asked what he had taught during his career he said "oh, I was sort of a utility player..." and then started to rattle off--in some detail--areas of concentration as diverse as Quantitative Methods, American Congress, Democracy, Political Theory, Thomas Aquinas, Ancient and Medieval Political Theory, Catholic Political Thought, Politics And Literature and, especially later in his career, the Political Vision In Flannery O'Connor. He was especially fond of team teaching “The Justice Seminar,” a required course for the PPE concentration. In addition to his endless passion for Notre Dame and his work there, he also brought his full intellectual passion to the hands-on practice of politics and public policy. For over 40 years, he was deeply engaged in South Bend, the northeast neighborhood, housing issues, state, local and federal government. He was a lifelong Democrat who believed deeply in the importance of electing good people and was a close political advisor for Former Majority Whip in the United States Congress John Brademus. He worked on political campaigns at all levels and even late in his life was the person I would turn to first when I was having trouble interpreting unclear data or framing a challenging problem. In a full circle though, as much as he enjoyed being a thought partner to candidates from city council, to mayor, to congress, to governor and even running for president, he was equally proud of the number of Notre Dame graduates who participated in politics in their own way as candidates, in unions, doing advocacy, and working in government after having been inspired by his class. While his intellectual intensity was constantly bubbling under the surface, it was often disguised with his well-remembered turns of phrase: “If you're scared go buy a dog…” Look here cowboy…” “Don't take any wooden nickels…” “Like being all state from Rhode Island…” “Remember I’m ugly, not stupid…” “I'd bet dollars to donuts…” “Six of one, half a dozen the other…”The combination of how he talked, how he taught and how he thought made him one of the great ones in the lives of many. I think everyone who knew him well can remember how he strived almost pathologically to be honest on the one hand, but how every one of his many great stories took on a little more rhetorical flourish with each telling. We are all imperfect messengers of our own values at times, and he certainly wasn't right about everything in life, but one thing I think that runs through so many of the examples of his determination was an underlying belief that hard things were worth doing. To the amazement of some of us, and to the frustration of others, he could devour books with such a voracious appetite and speed that it was hard to keep up. There is no way to know for sure, but I'd bet dollars to donuts that he read Plato's Republic and Tolkien's Lord of the Rings more than anything else. I would never pretend to be able to sum up the whole of his thinking or beliefs or advice for the future, but I think those two works inspire questions that drove him to do hard things and to challenge the people with whom he had influence to do the same: Have you troubled over justice? Are you bringing what you can to the battle of our age? With the passing of Professor John Roos, an era passes for his family, for South Bend, and for Notre Dame. He hopes we beat USC in Football, that the women’s basketball team wins another national championship and that everyone who remembers him continues to push for justice in the communities around them.

Posted online on October 28, 2022
Published in South Bend Tribune