My first encounter (and memory) of Don was when I interviewed for a flow cytometry position at Memorial Sloan-Kettering in the laboratory for investigative cytology. Don was a tall man and one who loved to eat, but he was slim, not at all overweight. While he was interviewing me, he was eating a hamburger and fries. That might have put some people off, but not me. I found it charming. He explained that this was his afternoon snack before dinner. He also told me that he got to work early each day and went to the cantina for a good breakfast. It wasn't clear to me whether he had eaten breakfast at home first, but it didn't matter. His folksy manner put me right at ease, and I knew that we would work well together. That was in 1982. In 1983, he and his family moved back to Brookings South Dakota where the Evenson family farm was located. He became Professor of Biochemistry at South Dakota State University and worked there for many years. In 1991, he and his wife Carol came to Oslo on sabbatical for a year. Don was friendly with Ole Petter, my boss in Oslo at that time, and we ended up sharing an office for a year and working together on his sperm chromatin structure assay projects. That year went by too fast, but it is filled with good memories of work and social activities. We and our colleagues often went out to eat in the evenings, or out dancing. Sometimes there were get-togethers at different homes. Carol ended up leaving for home in September of that year, but Don stayed until the end of the year. We celebrated Thanksgiving with another American scientist living in Oslo; there must have been at least twenty of us. Don promised he would bring the turkey and cranberries to make cranberry sauce. And he did, after visiting the US and smuggling a turkey in his luggage on his return trip to Oslo. How he managed that, no one knows, as it was a big turkey. Just one of many fun memories I have of him. He was never ruffled about such things; he just assumed they would work out, and they did.
He was a true scientist, interested in new technologies and techniques and how to apply them to his work with sperm chromatin structure. He was interested in helping infertile couples with his sperm chromatin structure assay (SCSA) technique, and he later founded a company to do this assay on human sperm from men who wanted to ensure that they could father children. He kept on doing research at the same time as he ran his company, and he traveled to many different conferences to present his work. I am proud to have been a co-author on several of his publications.
He and Carol loved to travel and had probably seen most of the world. One trip stands out in my mind; they attended a voodoo ceremony in Haiti, somewhere out in the forest. I remember asking him if he had been nervous about doing that. He said no. That was his attitude to most things, as I pointed out previously. If he had any fears, he hid them well. He trusted that life would treat him well, and for the most part it did. And he made the most of the life that was given him. He was a kind man, not given to anger, negativity, or cynicism. I believe that his faith in God kept him grateful and happy. He and Carol were married for sixty-two years at his passing at 84 in March of this year. I will remember him, Frank, Zbigniew and Myron for always. Smart men and nice men who treated women well. May they all rest in peace.
