Alfred “Al” Brooks Veerhoff of Kensington, MD, died on April 16, 2020 of COVID-19. He was 82. He is survived by his wife of 43 years, Penny, five sons and three daughters-in-law: Steven and Sue of Arlington, VA, Brian and Suzi of Keswick, VA, Alexander and Bridget of Seattle, WA, William of Kensington, MD, and Benjamin of Kensington, MD; as well as five grandchildren: Ellie, Jared, Forest, Miles, and Viktor. He also leaves his sisters, Mary Lou Franklin, Margaret Veerhoff, and Sarah Veerhoff; and sister-in-law Jackie Reed. His sister Gail V. Smith predeceased him.
Born in Raleigh, NC to the late Otto and Mary Veerhoff, Al grew up in Washington, DC and was a fourth generation Washingtonian. He graduated from the Landon School in 1956 and from Yale University in 1960, followed by two years active duty and four years reserves in the US Army. Al began his career in journalism in New York in 1962. He returned to the Washington area in 1967 when he received a Washington Journalism Center fellowship to study media and government. He later worked as an associate editor of Transport Topics, a news editor at US News & World Report, and copy editor for other publications. He started taking freelance assignments in 1987, and he covered a range of topics, including government, current events, medicine, parenting, transportation, agriculture, satellites and geology. His last assignment before retiring was as Acting Editor of the Military Traffic Management Command’s magazine Translog.
Known to many as Owol, Al was a full-time parent for 53 years and a regular presence at school, athletic, Boy Scout, theater, and fundraising events. His community activities included serving as a Boy Scout Troop Committee chairman, two terms on a village council, an election judge, and a race course marshal. He was always willing to try something new or different. He and Penny were part of a monthly potluck and play reading group for 25 years. He performed as a variety of characters in church plays. Al loved to cook, and frequently experimented with new techniques, recipes, and ingredients. Al also had a special knack for connecting with and encouraging children, young people, and people with differing needs and abilities. For the last few years, he volunteered at SPIRIT Club, an athletic center for people of all ages, needs and abilities. If you would like to honor his memory with a donation, please consider the Jubilee Foundation, Inc., the SPIRIT Club Foundation, Inc. or another organization that serves people with disabilities. A celebration of Al’s life will be held at a future date.If you would like to honor his memory with a donation, please consider the Jubilee Foundation, Inc., the SPIRIT Club Foundation, Inc. or another organization that serves people with disabilities. A celebration of Al’s life will be held at a future date.
Published in The Washington Post on May 31, 2020.
Alfred Veerhoff, from storied art family who walked his own path, dies of covid-19
Alfred Brooks Veerhoff was born into a storied D.C. art family that opened its first gallery in the 1870s, but he decided early in life to follow his own path.
Instead of art, Veerhoff, who died at age 82 on April 16 from complications of covid-19, studied English literature in college and chose journalism as a career.
He filled his adult life with a blend of pursuits that revolved around his family and helping his community. He used his whip-smart intellect to help others, not intimidate them, according to friends and family, and found fun in places many other adults don’t with his affinity for engaging young people.
“I found a squirt gun in his dresser,” said Penny Veerhoff, his wife of 43 years. “I don’t know if he confiscated it from a kid or was planning to use it at some time in the future. Life with Al was not dull.”
Alfred Veerhoff, 82, who died April 16, loved to get his face painted at the annual Down Syndrome Network of Montgomery County. (Family photo)
Alfred Veerhoff grew up in the Washington area and graduated from Bethesda’s private Landon School in 1956 and from Yale University, where he studied English literature, in 1960. He joined the U.S. Army, serving two years on active duty and four years in the reserves, and then began a career in journalism in 1962 in New York City, returning five years later to the Washington area — with his first wife and two sons — after receiving a Washington Journalism Center fellowship to study media and government.
Though he decided not to participate in the family’s art enterprises because, he would say, he was not an entrepreneur, he had an exceptionally keen visual eye.
“Somebody told me that he could look at a layout when he was copy editor and he would know if a picture was one pica off,” Penny Veerhoff said. “We used to laugh because Al was the one who put his typing speed on his résumé.”
During his career, he worked as an associate editor of Transport Topics, a news editor at U.S. News & World Report and a copy editor for other publications. He started taking freelance assignments in 1987, writing about government, current events, medicine, parenting, transportation, agriculture, satellites and geology. His last assignment before retiring was as acting editor of the Military Traffic Management Command’s magazine Translog.
His longtime friend, Scott Reardon, remembers Veerhoff as an editor who knew a lot about a lot of things, and who could edit someone else’s work “lightly without being heavy-handed about it and fix things.” Veerhoff could, he said, “smooth things over without making someone else look dumb.”
“He was very smart, humble, self-effacing, curious,” Reardon said, adding that Veerhoff was able to move comfortably through different worlds — the high-achievers and government officials of Washington with whom he associated, as well as people from other walks of life whom he befriended.
Veerhoff had an unusual nickname: Owol, thanks to a young boy who lived in the neighborhood in the early 1970s, who couldn’t say Al or Mr. Veerhoof. Instead, he called him Owl, saying it as if it had two syllables — because Winnie the Pooh’s Owl calls his home “The Wolery” in “The House At Pooh Corner,” and that is how the little boy, himself called Pooh, pronounced it.
For the rest of Veerhoff’s life, his family and friends called him Owol.
Veerhoff was a divorced father with full custody of two boys, ages 6 and 11, at the time he met Penny. She was the co-director of a day-care center sponsored by All Saints’ Church in Chevy Chase, where he volunteered for the board.
“Before we started dating,” she said, “I remember I called to tell him a board meeting was being rescheduled. A breathless kid answered the phone and said, ‘Mr. Beerkoff can’t come to the phone. He’s playing sardines. I have to go’!”
They were married later that year, with peanut butter in their wedding cake because that was his favorite food. Her wedding was engraved “TIMES THREE” “because I was getting Al plus his boys.”
The two had three more sons, including identical twins with Down syndrome. Veerhoff became — and stayed — involved with causes helping people with differing needs and abilities. He loved getting his face painted at the annual walk benefiting the Down Syndrome Network of Montgomery County.
And he was committed to volunteering at the SPIRIT Club, an athletic program for people of all ages and abilities, where he also trained.
“Even on days he didn’t want to train he gave it 100 percent,” said Adrian Wright, who was Veerhoff’s personal trainer. “He would always go up to the class member that was having the most difficult time and personally demonstrate how to do the exercises. During the class breaks he would keep members engaged by doing exercises with the members who returned from break early.”
Veerhoff was a regular presence at his sons’s schools as well as athletic events and Boy Scout troops and fundraising events. He served as a Boy Scout Troop Committee chairman, as well as two terms on a village council, as an election judge and also as a racecourse marshal.
He and Penny were part of a monthly potluck and play reading group for 25 years, and he performed as a variety of characters in church plays.
Veerhoff loved to cook, frequently experimenting with recipes, ingredients and techniques, and had taught his two eldest sons to cook when they were young. After he and Penny were married, they took out a wall in their house to expand the kitchen to accommodate four cooks. All five sons wound up being comfortable in the kitchen, she said.
At the time of his coronavirus diagnosis, Veerhoff was staying at Autumn Lake Healthcare at Oakview rehabilitation and nursing center in Silver Spring while recovering from a mild heart attack and stent replacement. His wife said he had been moved there from a hospital on March 13 because it was believed a rehab facility would be safer.
Veerhoff, who had tested positive for the flu, was in a private room. Peggy Veerhoff said families learned on April 10 that there was coronavirus within the facility. A nurse told her Alfred Veerhoff had been tested for covid-19 one day earlier after he was feeling lousy.
The positive test result came back the following Monday. After initially communicating with relatives through text or FaceTime, he stopped answering messages later in the afternoon on April 15. He was taken to a hospital the next day because he was having trouble breathing, his wife said, but died about two hours after his arrival.
Published in The Washington Post on July 13, 2020