Obituary of Rollie Michael Alliston

R. Michael Alliston was born in Fort Worth, Texas on October 4, 1948. He grew up in Dallas, attending W. T. White High School as a member of the school’s first class. With a foundation set by the Dallas Independent School District, Michael went on to study at Rice University, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics in 1971. He later received his PhD from the University of Virginia in 1976 having written his doctorate on algebraic topology with a focus on Dyer-Lashof operations and bordism. Having been a member of the ROTC at Rice, Michael was called to serve during the Vietnam War; he interrupted his graduate studies at UVA for basic training, though he was not ultimately sent abroad. After completing his thesis in Charlottesville, Michael moved to Dekalb, Illinois in the summer of 1976 to work as an assistant professor at Northern Illinois University. Soon after, he was asked by a new neighbor, Sarah Moden, if he would help carry a sofa from a rented moving truck into her apartment. Two years later, on June 17, 1978, Michael and Sarah married in the bride’s hometown of Buffalo, New York. The couple were then living in Mount Alto, Pennsylvania where Michael was teaching at Penn State. Ultimately deciding to give up academia, Michael relocated with Sarah to Houston, Texas to work for the Exxon Corporation as a trade advisor. Sarah taught special education at their local public school. In 1983, the couple was transferred to New Jersey, where their two children would be born. The family lived in Summit, New Jersey for thirteen years. In 1987, Michael left his position at Exxon in order to serve as a manager at McKinsey & Company, departing from that firm ten years later to take a position as Senior Vice President in Risk Prediction at MasterCard International. Michael and his family moved to Pound Ridge in Westchester County, New York in 1997. Sarah worked as a director of religious education in several churches across the state-border in Connecticut. Michael and Sarah were very happily based in Pound Ridge for eighteen years. From 1997 to 2015, their family attended Christ Church Greenwich, where Michael sang in the Choir of Men and Boys. Music was a lifelong passion of Michael’s, in equal measure to mathematics. Throughout his career in industry, Michael remained an active member of the American Mathematical Society. Following Michael’s retirement from MasterCard, he and Sarah decided to move back to Texas, in part to be nearer to Michael’s aging mother, Ruby (née Tinsley) Alliston. In the fall of 2015, together with the help of Michael’s cousin and dear friend, Barbara Tucker of Saginaw, the couple renovated a house that had been built in 1939 by Michael’s grandfather Rollie Tinsley, for whom Michael was named. The house stands on a ranch purchased by Rollie, a cattleman, and his wife Mary (née King) Tinsley in 1929. In addition to spending time with his family in Texas, Michael enjoyed visits back to New York as well as to Berlin, Germany to visit his daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter. He also took up teaching math classes at his local college, on the northwest campus of TCC. In March of 2019, Michael was diagnosed with stage-four pancreatic cancer. Despite the dire prognosis of an aggressive disease not well understood, Michael was able in his remaining months to celebrate the wedding of his son, and the first birthday of his daughter’s child. His granddaughter had moved from Germany to Texas with her parents days after Michael’s diagnosis, spending ten of her first fourteen months in Michael’s daily company. Having lived in Tarrant County for five years, Michael passed away at home on the morning of Friday, 24 January 2020 at the age of seventy-one. He is predeceased by his father, Wiley Thompson Alliston, who passed in 2009. Michael is survived by his mother Ruby (96), his wife Sarah Moden-Alliston, his daughter Rachel, his son-in-law Maximilian, his first grandchild Mave, his son Loren and new daughter-in-law Megan; Michael’s brother Wiley Meredith Alliston, sister-in-law Teri, Meredith and Teri’s three children – Andrew, Erin and Jeff – their spouses and children; and a plethora of Moden in-laws who appreciated and loved Michael over the course of his 41-year marriage to Sarah. Michael’s funeral service will take place at his church in Fort Worth, University Christian Church on Saturday, 1 February at 3pm. He will be laid to rest at Mount Olivet Cemetery the same day, nearby his father Wiley and grandparents Rollie and Mary. In lieu of flowers, Michael’s family ask that donations be made towards pancreatic research through the Moon Shots Program at MD Anderson, where Michael worked as a research assistant during his time as an undergraduate student in Houston.