Ronald Sutcliffe’s children knew from a young age their Dad was a prominent figure in the Deaf community, but what they are most proud of is that he did not rest on his accolades.
Two of Sutcliffe’s five children, Glen and Jane Sutcliffe, said their Dad not only put in the work with their Mom, Agnes Dunn Sutcliffe, to support Deaf organizations but also individual people. Ronald Sutcliffe died at 90 years old in January in Ames.
Glen Sutcliffe said the walls of his parents’ offices were covered with accolades and degrees like wallpaper. But when he was older, he said he realized something different.
“Yeah, they’re nice, they’re great, but nothing compares to really, really, really, really making a difference in a person’s life, because it just ripples to the world,” he said.
Ronald Sutcliffe was born in Sumner, grew up in Clarksville, attended the Iowa School for the Deaf in Council Bluffs and graduated from Gallaudet College — now known as Gallaudet University — in Washington, D.C. He worked at the university, which describes itself as the “educational, political, social, and economic engine of the deaf and signing community,” for 42 years.
Sutcliffe changed many people’s lives in different ways. He helped a Gallaudet student with AIDS finish the one course he needed to graduate before dying. And he taught a challenging but key course of statistics in American Sign Language, unlocking graduate degrees for deaf students and then higher-level career opportunities that benefited their families for generations.
Jane Sutcliffe said her Dad also helped advance civil rights for people with disabilities.
“The World Games for the Deaf, the Deaf Olympics, my parents went to all of those, all around the world and were just really great role models for deaf people coming up through the communities,” Jane Sutcliffe said. Those events are now known as the Deaflympics.
Their father also was friends with former Sen. Tom Harkin. Glen Sutcliffe worked for Harkin, an Iowa Democrat who sponsored the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act. Upon the ADA’s passage in 1990, Harkin delivered the first speech on the Senate floor in ASL so his deaf brother Frank could understand.
Ronald Sutcliffe’s deaf advocacy touched Iowa and the nation
Glen Sutcliffe said “as soon as I could figure out why we had so many people in our house almost every week,” he knew his parents were important while they lived in Maryland, just outside of D.C.
He remembered vividly as a child, “many of the guys would saunter off to the basement to discuss this and that,” and while that could be called “parlor politics,” it was also organization.
His father was a finance guy, often the treasurer for various groups’ boards.
And Jane Sutcliffe said their parents were involved with fundraising and mentoring through deaf organizations in Iowa and the D.C.-Maryland area.
An in memoriam for Ronald Sutcliffe written by Robert Weinstock on Gallaudet’s website noted Sutcliffe was a “towering figure” in both regions’ Deaf communities.
Ronald Sutcliffe was a 1959 Gallaudet graduate, its first Dean of the School of Management and the university’s second-ever Dean Emeritus.
After he graduated, his roles as a finance director and board member for Washington-area deaf athletic and social organizations led to him meeting President Lyndon B. Johnson at the White House in the run up to the 1965 World Games for the Deaf, according to the in memoriam.
But Sutcliffe remained proud of his Iowa roots. He was a 1954 Iowa School for the Deaf graduate and in 2005 published a history of the school for its 150th anniversary.
Agnes, his wife, was in the same 1959 class as him at Gallaudet and was a Nebraska School for the Deaf graduate.
Agnes died in 2020 at the age of 86. Ronald came back to Iowa in 2023, where his daughter lives, to be closer to her and his younger sister as his health declined.
He also connected with the Deaf community in Iowa as an alumnus of the Iowa School for the Deaf.
“He just really thrived seeing his classmates, which was really just nice full circle for him to come back to Iowa,” Jane Sutcliffe said.
She said she’s proud of her father when people tell her they succeeded in their education because of his mentorship.
“My Dad wanted people to know more, do better and he really believed that that was a way that you could support yourself and do better in the world,” she said.
Phillip Sitter covers the suburbs for the Des Moines Register. Phillip can be reached via email at PSitter@usatodayco.com. Find out more about him online in the Register’s staff directory.
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Iowan leaves legacy for Deaf community all the way to Washington DC
Reporting by Phillip Sitter, Des Moines Register / Des Moines Register
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