MCO professor had keen interest in jazz

12/6/2000

Richard H. Shalvoy, an assistant professor of child psychiatry at the Medical College of Ohio, died of skin cancer yesterday at his home in Sylvania. He was 69.

Mr. Shalvoy was a psychotherapist and teacher there for more than 20 years. Before joining MCO, he developed mental health services for Health Plus of Toledo, the city's first health maintenance organization.

“He was open and friendly,” his wife, Michele, said. “He had a great sense of humor.”

Mr. Shalvoy was a jazz aficionado who loved playing his trumpet in the family's living room on Sunday mornings. His interest in music stemmed from influences he had during his high school days in Detroit, his wife said.

He was diagnosed with melanoma, a fatal form of skin cancer, about 21/2 years ago, Mrs. Shalvoy said.

Mr. Shalvoy was once program analyst at the National Institute of Mental Health in Rockville, Md., and administrator of the Northwestern Ohio Regional Council on Alcoholism in Toledo.

He obtained a bachelor's degree from John Carroll University in Cleveland, a master's degree in social work from Loyola University in Chicago, and did doctoral work at the University of Pennsylvania.

Surviving are his wife, Michele; daughters, Suzanne Antonick, Peggy Holt, and Jennifer Shealy; sons, John, Drew, and Gavin; brother, James, Jr.; sister, Elizabeth Esch, and eight grandchildren.

Services will be at 10 a.m. Friday in the Reeb Funeral Home, where the body will be after 2 p.m. tomorrow.

The family requests tributes to the home care massage program of the Hospice of Northwest Ohio in Perrysburg Township.