Alan A. Stone

Alan Atwood Stone, age 89, died peacefully at home on Saturday December 6th, 2025. Alan was born on June 29, 1936, in Ames, Iowa. The following year, the family moved to State College, Pennsylvania where his father took a position at Penn State as an Assistant Professor in Bacteriology. Early on, Alan distinguished himself as a rover and a free-thinking child, to the point his mother resorted to attaching him to the front porch of their rental house with a rope so he could safely play in the yard. Living frugally, his parents put off buying a car to save up for buying their own home in 1941.

During the war years, and still without a car, the family, which then included two younger sisters, took camping vacations by arranging for a taxi to drop them off at an area camping spot and pick them up the following week. Both parents were avid campers who loved the outdoors, and they instilled this trait in Alan, along with his lifelong enjoyment of trekking into the woods or other natural areas. Eventually, while vacationing in New Hampshire, Alan and his father climbed all 48 peaks over 4000 feet in the state, long before it became popular to do so.

Alan attended State College public schools, where he displayed a natural ability for music and mathematics, along with a talent for innovative thinking not necessarily in line with standard teaching methods at the time. In high school he played the clarinet; eventually he also excelled at playing recorders and the flute. He started college at Penn State but soon dropped out to enlist in the Army. The Army sent him to language school in Monterey, California, where he became fluent in Korean and was trained in cryptography. He eventually became fluent in Japanese as well. Alan was posted to Japan for monitoring transmissions from Korea and elsewhere during the Korean conflict.

After nearly 10 years living overseas, he returned home and met a former high school acquaintance, Erika Mares. Her parents had long resided on the next block from his, but it had taken that ten-year absence for them to connect. Once they did, they were married within weeks, on September 1, 1968, in the Mares family home in State College, Pennsylvania.

Alan completed college credits while serving in the military and eventually went on to earn his PhD in Japanese history from the University of Washington. He received a Fullbright scholarship to complete his dissertation research in Tokyo, Japan, where he spent one year with his wife and one year-old daughter, Elizabeth, from 1971 to 1972. Alan later taught as a professor of Japanese history at two universities before transitioning into computer programming during the early days of computing. That new path led to a long career at Duke, where he helped build some of the university’s early health care information systems.

Alan loved his dogs—especially Holly, Morgan, and Chandra, who hiked with him often. Upon retirement he devoted several years to volunteer service with Senior PharmAssist in Durham. To his family, Alan will be remembered as an avid hiker, a constant reader, and a lifelong lover of classical music.

Alan is survived by his wife, Erika; his daughters, Elizabeth and Lorraine (Sease); two sisters, Sylvia (Smith) and Sue Ellen (Snape); and his grandchildren, Greg, Jenna, Cole, Riva, Leo, and Jackson. The family would like to offer a special thank you to Duke Homecare & Hospice, as well as to Alan’s dedicated caregivers Simon and Phil, for the very special care they provided in his final weeks. A private memorial service will be planned at a later date. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be considered to a local Animal Protection Society (APS) or similar charity.