By
Kevin Clerici
Arizona Daily Wildcat
UA director dies after 50 years of work
UA history professor Heiko Oberman, an internationally-renowned religious historian, Regents professor and director of the late medieval and Reformation studies division in the history department, died Sunday at age 70.
Oberman, who grew up in the Netherlands, came to the University of Arizona in 1984. He was widely recognized as a foremost expert on the Reformation. Oberman's writing career spanned more than half a century and included "Luther: Between Man and the Devil," one of his most honored works.
"Oberman was an incredibly energetic man," said UA history lecturer Peter Dykema. "A true intellectual. A man fascinated with the past and ways to bring the surprise of the past to students and the broader community."
"He was a formidable person," said history professor and department head Richard Cosgrove.
"When he wanted answers - he wanted answers," he said. "He would not tolerate evasions. He was a plain person for all the honors he had won. There was nothing artificial or pretentious about him. He was just a real person, that's the best way that I can describe him."
Oberman suffered from metastasized (CQ) melanoma, a form of skin cancer.
In 1988, when the Arizona Board of Regents created its prestigious Regents Professor award for scholarship, Oberman was among the first class of nine UA faculty members named.
"He was almost a walking Latin dictionary and resource guide," Dykema said. "A living reference to the late middle ages and the Reformation."
It was at Arizona that Oberman began teaching history to large undergraduate classes. His upper-class offerings dealt with the Reformation, but his popular introductory courses covered the span of history from the end of the Roman Empire in the west to the French Revolution.
Oberman was known to either heavily rewrite or completely throw out his lecture notes each year to accommodate his latest research finds.
In 1989 he won the Five-Star Faculty Award, the annual teaching prize given by the UA student body to their choice for top instructor.
"He was a Dutchman who had lived in New England and England before coming to Arizona, so there were things about our popular culture that mystified him," Dykema said. "He would use his foreignness to his advantage. His mispronunciations of words were almost intentional. At times, he was hilarious."
Victoria Clisham, a graduate student who has studied under Oberman for five years, remembers the evening seminars Oberman would hold in his home. Starting at 7 p.m., some sessions would run past midnight.
"There are few people like him, period," Clisham said. "In that he said exactly what he was thinking. You always knew where you stood. There were never any games."
"In Europe, they call your Ph.D. adviser your "Doctor-Father," she said. "He took both sides of that description seriously. He was the doctor to us absolutely, and he was also a father to his students."
Behind his desk sits a color photograph of an empty bench in the shadow of a tree planted just outside the Arizona State Museum. The bench, said his longtime secretary Louise Betterton, was his "outside office."
John Frymire knew Oberman for 12 years and one of his last two students to defend a dissertation under Oberman this month.
"He was very concerned with the whole person, the scholar and the person," he said. "That included spouses and children. He went out of his way to help whole families and not just single students."
Oberman is survived by his wife, Toetie, and four children.
"I remember several years ago that he was in the building and he had brought his granddaughter with him," Cosgrove said. "Here was this formidable man walking with this little 4-year-old and being careful to introduce her to everyone.
"I remember thinking he would probably be the greatest grandfather."
"He never stopped working," Frymire said. "Compared to many professors, he always had time for his students, even if it was after midnight."
Oberman, who spoke five languages, brought the European method of conducting research to the UA. He insisted that his students learn many languages and learn from multiple instructors.
"He saw that he couldn't do it all himself and he highly respected his colleagues," Frymire said. "He made sure the grad students in his program worked with three or four professors in the department of history and other departments. Despite how famous he was, he never said, 'All you have to do is sit at my feet.'"
