Shlesinger

Class of 1984

Jay Dittler Shlesinger (1962-1995)

Jay Shlesinger was born in Atlanta, Georgia on September 9, 1962. He attended the Westminster Schools, graduating in 1980. At the University of Virginia, he was an English major. He joined the Beta Upsilon Chapter of Pi Kappa Phi Fraternity on January 9, 1982 (BU #370). He died in Atlanta, Georgia on January 20, 1995. One of his high school classmates and also a UVA fraternity brother, Penn Holderness, shared the following: Jay grew up up with me in Atlanta, GA, and we attended Westminster together. In high school I would've never imagined that we'd be fraternity brothers, pledge brothers even. I don't remember his activities at UVA; just that he was . . . a decent student. Of course I remember when he had his terrible accident, but fortunately I was in a Chemistry lab that day. After his long hospitalization his father chartered a Lear jet that I rode with him from C'ville to Atlanta for Thanksgiving or Christmas break, I'm not sure which. He had been in the hospital for a while and he was in great pain on the flight. Another memory. One day while living in the house we were firing bottle rockets over the Alamo. (TKE, maybe?) Jay shot one that landed on their flat roof and caught fire. He and I ran like wind, put up a ladder, and doused the fire out with a bucket of water. Hilarious and scary as hell at the same time. I remember eating live gold fish on the porch of the house, and several road trips to Mary Baldwin. Good times at football games. Do they still do Old Grand-Dad day for a 4th year's last game? Jay, needless to say, finished his.

His girlfriend, Mary Heyward, was around the house all the time from his 3rd year on, and many of us remember the wedding a couple of years after graduation. Mary and Jay lived in Atlanta, where he worked for perhaps five years. He fought his illness for perhaps another five years, and died about ten years after graduation. After his death I lost touch with a lot of Pi Kaps. Jay was my connection to a lot of guys in the house.

In spite of the moniker 'Obno the pig boy' he brought a lot of us together, and certainly made a lot of fun times for all us at the house.

Jay turned out to be a remarkable person. He wore a back brace for scoliosis for two years in early high school. He was a little skinny guy and bullied a lot. He was very resilient, and a smart ass. I think he won some measure of respect even in high school for surviving 9th and 10th grade. He really blossomed once he and Mary became an item in his third year at UVa.

The following memories of Jay have been shared by Ashley Boling who also presented a tribute at the Necrology held on April 10, 2011 at the UVA Chapel as part of the 50th Anniversary Celebration of the founding of the Beta Upsilon Chapter of Pi Kappa Phi. After graduating, Jay worked at Andersen Consulting Company in Atlanta.

Jay Schlesinger was one of my pledge brothers in 1980, and I was in the back of a Ryder truck when Jay's leg was crushed in a horrible accident.

Jay's accident was sad indeed, and I do not know how many brothers were in the truck at the time, but all of the pledges, of which I was one, were there. In all, maybe 50 Pi Kapps were involved. Glenn Dickson was driving the truck, but the accident was not his fault. Another motorist did not see the utility pole hanging out of the back our truck as we turned left at the Tarleton Oak Exxon station. The other motorist, driving an older pick up truck, went straight as we turned left. The pick up smashed into the pole, and Jay was sitting on the pole at the open end of our truck. Jay was pinned up against the inside of our truck. His contorted body left a permanent imprint in the inner wooden paneling of our rented moving truck. All of the rest of us were told to get out of the truck, and we had to lift up the pole to get it off of Jay. The pole was about 40 feet long and weighed quite a bit, maybe 1 ton.

Another pledge brother, David Hiatt, was in the front area of the back of the moving truck, and the other end of the pole smashed David's ankle. He broke his ankle and was in a cast for a month or so.

The paramedics who responded fairly quickly were frazzled. One poked his head out of the back of the truck as the two were trying to figure out where to start on Jay, and yelled: "Is there anyone who knows how to take blood pressure?" I said I had learned in AP Biology in High School, so the paramedic yelled for me to come and do it.

Jay was remarkably calm as I took his blood pressure and assisted the two overwhelmed paramedics. It is an image I will never forget.

We all thought Jay was going to die right there in the back of that truck. He did not die then and there, but died in Atlanta some 13 or so years later, as a result of the transfusions he received in the U. hospital later that night and during the course of the next few days.

I visited Jay almost every day in the hospital, until his parents were able to fly him home to Atlanta, about a month later. Jay made an almost complete recovery, although he was still on crutches the next August for our Hell Week.

Jay did not die then and there, although we all thought he would. Jay was taken to the University hospital and underwent several surgeries to repair his mangled leg. While in the O.R., Jay received several pints of blood from the University hospital blood bank. This was Valentine's Day, 1981. Some of the blood Jay got must have been infected with HIV.

In the early 1990's, Jay went to give blood in Atlanta, and his blood sample showed that he was HIV positive and had AIDS. Jay was married to a U. graduate, Mary Heyward, who was not HIV positive and is still not.

Jay died a slow death and it was sad. His ordeal could have happened to any one of the pledges and brothers who were in the back of that truck on that afternoon, but it happened to Jay.

Biography compiled by Russell H. Davis (Class of 1962) with information from the following sources: Ashley Boling, Penn Holderness, Corks & Curls, the University of Virginia Alumni Association, the Pi Kappa Phi National Office, Ancestry.com and the website of the Westminster School, Atlanta, Georgia.