FRAN SPURGEON

Fran Spurgeon, who served in the Law School’s Admissions Office from 1974 to 1991, including responsibilities as Assistant Dean of Admissions from 1982-1991, passed away in September after a long battle with cancer. She joined Penn in 1968 as an admissions officer for the Graduate School of Education. Dean Michael A. Fitts remembered Fran as someone who “cared deeply about the Law School and was responsible for the admission of a generation of Penn students.”


MARK E. GOLDBERG L’66
(1941–2000)

by Allen D. Black L’66

Mark Goldberg died, much too young, in August 2000 from complications of non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Mark came to Penn Law School from Bowdoin College in his home state of Maine, and brought with him a wry sense of humor and a large dose of Yankee common sense, both of which served him well through the years. At Penn, Mark shared a house on Melville Street in West Philadelphia with Law ’66 classmates Van (Evan C.) Archer, Bob Axelrod, Peter Scott, Owen Smith, and me. Everyone who knew him has at least a hundred funny memories of those days.

After graduation, Mark served as a Captain in the Army Medical Service Corps, including a tour of duty at Cam Rahn Bay in Viet Nam.

When he returned to Philadelphia after the war, Mark established a practice concentrating in wills and estates, real estate transactions, and business counseling. In the late 1970s he moved his practice to Lower Bucks County, and added municipal government to his areas of expertise. In 1984 he founded the firm of Groen, Laveson, Goldberg & Rubenstone in Bensalem where he practiced until his death. He was solicitor to both Bensalem and Northampton Townships, and the Bucks County Water & Sewer Authority.

In both his practice and his private life Mark was known for his kindness, his wisdom, his attention to detail, his level-headed good judgment, his integrity, and his indomitable sense of humor. His friends, his clients, and his adversaries all trusted Mark without reservation. He was active in Bucks County Republican politics, was a member of the Council Rock School Board and the board of the Bucks County Community College, and was a pillar of the Ohev Shalom congregation in Richboro.

He leaves a widow, Lynne, and two children, Ellen 16, and Brandon, 15.