Donald Philip Gladu
| last update to this page: 9/8/99
Donald Philip Gladu - born February 15, 1920 in Framingham, Massachusetts, and raised in nearby Ashland, passed away July 27, 1999 after a long battle with prostate cancer. He is preceded in death by his wife of 41 years, Phyllis Gladu, and by his brother Robert Gladu. Survived by his children, elder son John and daughter-in-law Rebecca Gladu MD, their two children, Amanda and Madeline Gladu of Pearland, Texas, and younger son Michael Gladu and Cynthia Smith of Houston. John is a Macintosh Information Center Consultant at Baylor College of Medicine and Mike is a freelance bicycling photojournalist, both living in Houston. A 16 year old graduate of high school with 3 years at the Lowell Institure of M.I.T., he entered the workforce as a journeyman surveyor and insurance claims photographer in New England. He enlisted in WWII, attaining the rank of staff sergeant in the 3rd Army Air Force Combat Camera Unit, 8th Air Force, 325th Photo Wing. His tour of duty included postings in Hollywood, California and London, England. After his discharge from the military, he found his true calling as an architectural and design model-maker with Atkins & Merrill Co. in Sudbury, Massachusetts. When the firm opened a new branch in New York City, he relocated there to manage the new shop, where he met, interviewed, hired and then married Phyllis. Hired away by M.W. Kellogg the petrochemical refinery design and construction firm, he would open and run their design model shop, going on to develop what would become world standards in engineering modeling. When MWK joined the exodus of petrochemical giants moving their world headquarters from New York to Houston, in 1970 he relocated his wife and two sons, opening and supervising the model shop in their new Greenway Plaza offices. Membership in the M.W. Kellogg Quarter-Century Club came in 1981. He retired in 1984. His retirement years were filled building architectural models, and he became a fixture in the local Miniatures community, renowned for his custom-crafted dollhouses. We'll be posting more photos the archives here as we collect them from the ancestral home. |
