Professor Emeritus, historian dies of cancer complications over break
Gerald Grob, professor of the history of medicine at Rutgers and its Institute for Health, Health Care Policy, and Aging Research, died on Dec. 16 due to liver failure and complications from cancer.
Grob was 84 years old and passed away in Evergreen, Colorado, leaving behind a legacy of work in the history of treatment of the mentally ill.
“There is universal agreement that he was a leading scholar in the history of American mental health care and in other aspects of the history of medicine,” said Janet Golden, professor in the Department of History at Rutgers—Camden and a friend and colleague of Grob.
Golden said she had never worked with Grob directly, but she co-edited his series of books published by the Rutgers University Press. They would talk on the phone and meet every year at the annual meeting of the American Association for the History of Medicine.
“I enjoyed hearing him talk about the hikes he went on with his wife, Lila, about his children and grandchildren, about settling in New Jersey when he first came to Rutgers and built his house,” Golden said. “He had a great sense of joy and humor and was a warm and caring person.”
Grob began teaching at Rutgers in 1969. In addition to his teaching and research in the Department of History and at the Institute for Health, Health Care Policy, and Aging Research, he also served three times as the chair of his department, according to Rutgers Today.
Margaret Marsh, a professor in the Department of History at Rutgers—Camden, was Grob’s teaching assistant when she took courses with him as a graduate student, where she said he helped shape her career.
“Gerry Grob taught me how to be a professional historian and the importance of finding your own voice. He did an enormous service to me and all of his graduate students,” Marsh said.
Marsh said she is trying to be a professor like he was.
“I remained available to my own graduate students to help them, keep in touch with a number of them over the years when they developed their careers, and that’s what he taught me. He taught me how to be a historian and be a good colleague." she said.
Grob had a fun sense of humor, Marsh said.
“He had this entire store of extremely corny jokes — the kind of jokes that probably your grandfather or great grandfather would tell,” Marsh said. “And you just knew when he was going to tell you one of these really corny jokes because he’d look at you with this incredibly impish smile and usually, his attitude was funnier than the jokes.”
Even when he was not physically around, Grob would make sure to email his jokes whenever he could, Marsh said.
Apart from his personality, Grob was an instructor who wanted his students to think for themselves, Marsh said.
“He’d say some outlandish interpretation (in class) because he just wanted us to say, 'No you’re wrong!' and to defend our own positions,” Marsh said.
He did this to ensure students did not just agree with his thoughts, Marsh said.
“That’s what I mean when I say teaching us how to think, because he didn’t care if we agreed with him. In fact, he didn’t want us to agree with him. He wanted us to learn to think for ourselves and figure out what we thought, not what he thought.”
Grob won The Daniel Gorenstein Award won in 1994, which will help Rutgers remember the scholar. The award encapsulated whom he was, Marsh said.
“It goes to a faculty member at Rutgers who is an incredibly distinguished scholar and who has worked tirelessly to advance the purposes of the University,” Marsh said. “And Gerry Grob was the first winner of that award when it was given.”
He was a successful scholar, a prolific writer and an influential teacher, she said.
"He also cared deeply about advancing the University, making it a better place for students and faculty,” she said.
