Obituary - Philip McL. Stehle

Philip McL. Stehle, son of Raymond and Marie McLellan Stehle and professor emeritus of physics at the University of Pittsburgh, died of pneumonia April 29, 2013 in Longwood retirement community in Oakmont, at the age of 94. 

Philip was a member of the Department of Physics and Astronomy from 1947 until his retirement in 1989 and twice served as its chairman.  He also held a Fullbright Fellowship at the University of Innsbruck in Austria on three different occasions.  He is credited with having set the physics department there on a productive track of research, for which he was awarded an honorary degree.  He is the author of three books about physics and a book about the history of physics in the early twentieth century.

Philip Stehle grew up in Montreal, where his father was professor of pharmacology at McGill, then returned to the United States to attend the University of Michigan.  There he met Evelyn Hoole of Bronxville, NY.  They married in 1942 while he was earning his PhD at Princeton.  During World War II, Dr. Stehle served in the army as a specialist working on the Manhattan Project.  After his discharge he taught for a year at Harvard before coming to Pittsburgh, where he spent many happy years.  He took up furniture-making and produced beautiful pieces for family and friends, while his wife Evelyn became a painter.  A skier and a squash-player, Dr. Stehle was known among his colleagues for his athleticism.

Dr. Stehle lost his sister Dorothy in 1992 and his wife in 2012.  He is survived by his three children, Eva, Mark, and John, and by two grand-daughters.  His smile and sense of humor will be widely missed. 

Arrangements were provided by BURKET-TRUBY FUNERAL HOME CREMATION & ALTERNATIVE SERVICES, INC. Oakmont