Albert Donald Sellstrom passed away peacefully on Sunday, October 14, 2018, weeks after celebrating his 92nd birthday. Donald was born in Elgin, Texas on September 25, 1926. His family moved to Austin when he was five, and he attended Wooldridge Elementary and University Junior High before graduating from Austin High School in 1944. He was enrolled in the Navy V-12 officer training program from 1944 to 1946 and completed his B.A. in English at the University of Texas in 1948. After receiving an M.A. in French in 1949, also from UT, he spent a year in Bordeaux, France as a Fulbright Fellow. In 1956, he earned a Ph.D. in French from Princeton University. Donald returned to the University of Texas, where he was a professor of French from 1958 until his retirement in 1991. He served as Chair of the Department of French and Italian from 1972 to 1978. In 1975 he was awarded the prestigious Ordre des Palmes Academiques by the French government in recognition of his contributions to French language education.
It was while teaching at Princeton that Donald met Eleanor Wood McCleary, a secretary in the Department of French and Italian. They were married three months later on January 31, 1958 and enjoyed sixty years together, talking, traveling, and raising a family.
Donald was preceded in death by his sister Vivion Sellstrom and brother John E. Sellstrom. He is survived by his wife Eleanor; sons Peter, Eric (Sandra), and Oren (David Muniz); daughter Margaret; grandchildren Joseph, Ryan, and Matthew Goff and Carlos, Maria, Elder, and Peter Sellstrom; great-grandchildren Tyler, Alexa, Addison, Reese, and Emberly Goff; and nephew Gary Sellstrom and his children Ynessa Medina and Donald, Michael, and James Sellstrom.
There will be a private graveside service and interment on November 3, 2018 in New Sweden, Texas, where Donald’s grandparents settled after emigrating from Sweden in the 1870s. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the Donald and Eleanor Sellstrom Fund for Excellence in French and Italian, University of Texas by visiting the link below, entering the following web address http://links.utexas.edu/vmcebk or by contact Stacy Clark at (512) 471-8861 for more information.
To extend condolences to the family, please visit www.dignitymemorial.com.
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