Dr. Alden D. Cutshall, 86, professor emeritus of geography and former head of the department at the University of Illinois at Chicago, started there when it was a two-year college on Navy Pier. He was an expert on Asia and especially the Philippines and the author of the 1964 book, "The Philippines: A Nation of Islands.

He was born in Olney in 1911 and died Oct. 8 in his Lombard home. "He could teach at the drop of the hat," his daughter, Arlene Rengert, said. "He had a sixth sense that, when you looked at anything, there was something to be learned from it." His daughter is also a geographer and teaches at West Chester University in West Chester, Pa. Professor Cutshall, a native of Olney, Ill., received his bachelor's degree at Eastern Illinois University, his master's from the University of Illinois and his doctorate at Ohio State University. He began teaching on the Urbana campus of U. of I. in 1940 and served during the 1940s in Washington with the Army map department, the Office of Strategic Services and the State Department. As a regional geographer, his specialties with the Philippines included not only the physical aspects of that country but also its economics, culture, populations and political conditions.

He was, in addition, an expert on the sugar industry there as well as elsewhere in the world. Professor Cutshall was past president of both the Geographical Society of Chicago, which recently presented him with its highest honor, and the Illinois Geographic Society, which named him "Distinguished Geographic Educator." The National Council for Geographic Education gave him its Miller Distinguished Service Award. In Lombard, he was active both with the Park Board Planning Commission and in planning over the years for the expansion of the schools there.

Survivors, besides his daughter, Arlene Cutshall Rengert of West Chester, Pa. include his wife, Freda Dolton Cutshall; a son, Alden Jr of Bellevue, Wash..; and eight grandchildren.

Services will be private.

Published in Chicago Tribune (IL) ~ October 21, 1997