Saying goodbye to Don

A bittersweet post today, as it will be about the passing of the last of my bosses, Don, from my Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center days. I think about those years from time to time and reflect upon how lucky I was to have worked there and to have had the bosses that I had. They are all deceased now. It was a different world then, and while I wouldn't return to it, I know too that the work world now is very different than when I was starting my career in the early 1980s. 

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. 

Saying goodbye to Gunvor

My husband's aunt Gunvor died recently at the age of ninety-six. A long life, mostly a good one except for the past five years or so where she struggled with health problems--not being able to really walk and toward the end, poor blood circulation that led to the loss of toes. Through it all, she rarely complained, which I found admirable, because I doubt that would be me. I often said to her that she was a role model for how to age gracefully. She lived in a nursing home for the past seven years, and that by itself would test anyone's patience, even though they took good care of her. The family visited her often, so she was not left alone. And a family friend, Odd, who had lived next door to her when she still had her apartment on the river, was often there as well. 

I met her and her husband Åke in the early 1990s when I first moved to Norway. Both of them welcomed me into the family with open arms. We had many pleasant and memorable Christmas celebrations at their house in Fredrikstad until Åke's death in 1998, and then at our place in Oslo from then on. Odd often drove Gunvor to Oslo the day before Christmas Eve, we all had lunch together, and then Gunvor stayed with us until the day after Christmas. It was always nice to sit in the kitchen and talk about everything while we cooked on Christmas Eve. Gunvor helped with food preparation where she could. 

I also remember when my husband and I moved to San Francisco in 1993 in connection with his postdoc at the University of San Francisco. Gunvor and Åke visited us in October 1993 for three weeks, and together we explored San Francisco and the surrounding area. There was a particularly memorable trip to Napa Valley where we visited several wineries and tasted different wines. A wonderful trip. And then we visited Muir Woods with the gigantic old redwood trees, and also Alcatraz prison. And when Halloween came around, I remember that Gunvor was completely captivated by all the pumpkins in connection with Halloween festivities.

In 1999, I defended my doctoral thesis, and after the defense there was a dinner for almost forty people in one of the dining rooms at the local hospital. I was so stressed because we had to set the tables and set everything up ourselves. Gunvor and Åke helped set the tables and place flowers on the tables. They just saw that I needed help and they helped me without asking, and voila, everything was arranged.

I will always remember how hospitable and kind both of them were to me when I first came to Norway. They are forever in my heart. And I will always remember the good conversations I had with Gunvor about life and family and children (they never had any). I will miss her.