Special Collections Department University of California Shields Library Davis, California
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Special Collections Department University of California Shields Library Davis, California An Oral History The Life and Work of GEORGE LEDYARD STEBBINS, JR An Interview Conducted By Mary Mead 1993 INTERVIEW CONTENTS Session 1, 23 June 1993. ............1 Early years: parents, ancestors; Mother's illness, 1915; private schools; interests and activities; Edgar Wherry University years: Harvard; summers at Seal Harbor; a major in biology and botany; Merritt Fernald, Edward Jeffrey; Oakes Ames; Karl Sax; personal interests in botany; graduate school; thesis advisors; problems with thesis; teaching assistantship; graduation, 1931 Post-graduate work: a position at Colgate University, 1931; research undertaken; A. P. Saunders Session 2, 30 June 1993. ..................17 Teaching and research: theory of evolution in 1920s; Darwin and Malthus; research at Colgate on peonies; Edgar Anderson; Sydney Blake; Antennaria; years during the Depression; an overall view of years at Harvard Marriage and familp: marriage to Margaret Godsborough Chamberlaine, 1931; children University of' California at Berkeley: a move to California; work with Ernest Babcock, 1935; Crepis; assistant professorship; Jens Clausen and the Biosystematists at Stanford, 1937 Session 3, 7 July 1993 ...........-32 Berkeley years: Biosystematists; Theodosius Dobzhansky; assistant professorship in genetics, 1939; organic evolution; advising graduate students; colleagues at Berkeley; Claude Hutchison; Erharta, Elymus, Dactylis; Mildred Mathias; Barbara McClintock; Daniel Axelrod; Carl Epling Transfer to UC Davis: establishing the Genetics Department at Davis, 1950; a field trip and a new species Session 4, 14 July1993. ..................59 Years at Davis: master plan for Davis in genetics; meets Barbara Brumley Monaghan, 1955; Me1 Green and Drosophila; teaching genetics; advising graduate students; California perennial grasses research; Guggenheim fellowship, 1961; developmental genetics--awned and hooded barley with Ezra Yagil, Vimal Gupta Session 5, 11August1993. ................ .73 Years at Davis: Dobzhansky comes to UC Davis, 1970; collaboration on a textbook, Evolution; Francisco Ayala; Richard Lewontin; DNA and the revolution in genetics; Robert Allard; Leslie Gottlieb; memorable graduate students; teaching; UC Davis herbarium; June McCaskill; Beecher Crampton; Ansel Adams California Native Plant Society: origins of society, 1965; President of CNPS, 1966; publicity; field trips Session 6, 8 September 1993. ....~........... .87 Current project ideas: okapi and giraffe--combining molecular techniques and the synthetic theory; Michael Miyamoto; North Coast/Central Valley Bio-Diversity Transect California Native Plant Society: Sacramento Chapter; Friends of the UC Davis Arboretum; Roman Gankin; Warren Roberts; President of CNPS until 1972; Rare Plant Project; state office in Sacramento for CNPS, 1973; field trips; California Native Areas Coordinating Council, 1969; memorable members of CNPS; California Botanical Society vs. CNPS Session 7, 15 September 1993. ..............,114 Travels abroad: Edinburgh, Paris, Stockholm, 1961; Chile, 1973; France, Australia, 1974 Return to the US: teaching at North Carolina, Carleton College, Ohio State, San Francisco State; Dobzhansky's death, 1975; teaching a seminar at UC Davis; changes at UC Davis over the years; Cold Canyon Reserve Botanical Congresses: USSR, 1975; Paris, 1954; Montreal, 1959; Edinburgh, 1964; Seattle, 1969; "Sing Along With Stebbins" Family life: second wife, Barbara; children as adults; grandchildren Reflections on: evolution vs. religion; homeostasis; mosaic evolution; evaluation of personal research and synthesis of ideas; genetics in the future; awards and honors BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION SHEET Information gathered by: Mary Mead Date: 23 June 1993 Name of Interviewee: George Ledyard Stebbins, Jr, Date/Place of Birth: 6 January 1906/Lawrence, Long Island Home Address: 341 West Eighth Street, Davis, California 95616 Date/Place of Marriage: 1931, divorced 1957; 1958, second marriage Name of Spouse: Margaret Godsborough Chamberlaine; Barbara Brumley Monaghan Date/Place of Birth: Not known Year of Death: Barbara Stebbins, 6 February 1993 Name of Father: George Ledyard Stebbins Date/Place of Birth: 1862 / Cazenovia, New York Name of Mother: Edith Alden Candler Date/Place of Birth: 1876 / Brooklyn, New York Father's Father/Mother: Charles Stebbins, Jr. / Mary Dows Date/Place of Birth: 1827, Cazenovia, N.Y. / 1838, New York City Mother's Father/Mother: Flamen Ball Candler / Marsha Lillian Rodriguez Date/Place of Birth: Ohio / Lisbon, Portugal Brothers: Henry Dows Stebbins, d. 1988 Sisters: Marsha Candler Stebbins, d. 1978 Children: Edith, 1932; Robert, 1933; George, 1935; stepson Marc Education: Cate School Harvard University, B.S. 1928; Ph.D. 1931 Occupations: Professor of Botany, Genetics, Evolution Colgate University, 1931 University of California, Berkeley, 1935 University of California, Davis, 1950 INTERVIEW HISTORY During a series of oral histories about the origins of the California Native Plant Society, G. Ledyard Stebbins was frequently mentioned as being an important early member and past president of the society. At a CNPS state board meeting in March 1993, I talked with Phyllis Faber who felt that an oral history of Professor Stebbins would be an important contribution to the CNPS archives. I approached Dr. Stebbins in May 1993 to determine if he might be willing to undertake an oral history project, and he agreed to do so but stipulated that he wanted the history to be deposited at the UC Davis Special Collections Library. After preliminary research and preparation, interviews were begun in Dr. Stebbins' home in Davis, California, on 23 June 1993. Dr. Stebbins' wife, Barbara, had recently and unexpectedly passed away, and he had enlisted the help of a family friend, Katie, who always graciously greeted me and sometimes served us tea while we talked. The drive from Berkeley to Davis was frequently quite hot during the summer months (I do not have an air-condition system in my car), but whenever I arrived at Dr. Stebbins' home, it was always cool and pleasant, From the beginning, Dr. Stebbins was always very generous with his time, following up on requests for written material and patiently answering any questions I had. There were seven interviews altogether, from 23 June to 15 September, and we concluded taping at what seemed to be a natural stopping place, Dr. Stebbins had emergency surgery between the fifth and sixth interviews, and he not only recovered remarkably well for a man of eighty seven years, he developed two new projects during his convalescence which he proceeded to share during the final interviews, What I recall most vividly about Dr. Stebbins is his extraordinary memory and an exceptional ability to clearly express details about his work and life. Occasionally he would forget the name of a person or place, and he would be quite upset with himself, but eventually he would remember. He often spoke animatedly about events in his life, and I very much enjoyed sharing in the more humorous moments. He even sang a few songs he had written for fun for a botanical congress. As an interviewer, I was challenged to hold to an interview outline--because Dr. Stebbins is a good speaker, one easily becomes spellbound. I had hoped to gather more details of his memories about the California Native Plant Society, but he readily admitted that his recollections about the origins of the society wer'e not so clear as other events and work in his life. I consider it a great privilege to have interviewed Dr, Stebbins. It is a memorable experience personally. In editing the transcripts of the interviews, with the exception of one paragraph (rewritten at his request for the sake of clarity), only minor corrections were needed, further testimony to Dr. Stebbins' clarity of thought. [Session 1, 23 June 19931 I think I.'d like to start with your schooling years, maybe somewhere in high school. Maybe, just as background, I will have to start with the crisis in my family when my mother was found to have tuberculosis because that changed everything in our lives. How old were you at that time? Eight years old. Before that, we had a regular round. Father's business was being transformed from wholesale produce which he had inherited from his great-uncle, David Dows, and was a junior partner by that time. Father [George Ledyard Stebbins] was a businessman, that is definite. He was actually sent to New York City by his father because they were in rather straitened circumstances in Cazenovia, New York. His great-uncle, David Dows, was very well known and a wealthy financier in New York City. David Dows and Company was one of the leading wholesale produce companies of New York City, supplying New York with milk, lard, oats for the horses, all that kind of thing. Father was sent down as a clerk in the Dows office at the age of seventeen. This was in 1879. He became a bachelor, belonging to the Union Club, in more or less New York society. He married into New York society. My mother was Edith Candler. Her father was Flamen Ball Candler who was a very well-known inheritance lawyer in New York City. They moved in social circles as it were. Mother never forgot that. The New York Social Register was her bible and was at her bedside up until the day she died in 1952 at the age of seventy six (laughs). So that was my background. We were not upper crust, but we were getting near there. What happened was that Father rose to be a junior partner some years after David Dows died, but the senior partner, Dows' nephew, George Cooksey [Dows], was interested in Seal Harbor, Maine, near Bar Harbor and Northeast Harbor, and wanted to develop it into a third fancy resort, similar to those that had already been going. Father did both for a while but gradually became more attached to Seal Harbor and gave up the produce business. That was about the time when I was born. Father was forty four years old. He was born in 1852, and I was born in 1906. The earliest I can remember is that Mother said I first went from New York to Seal Harbor in a market basket when I was six months old.