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OBITUARIES
E. Roy Waygood
Long-time ASPB member E. Roy Waygood
died in Vancouver, British Columbia, on April 8, 2001.
Roy Waygood was born in 1918 in Bramhall, Cheshire, England.
He immigrated to Canada and obtained his B.S.A. from the Ontario Agricultural
College in 1941. He served as a flight lieutenant in the RCAF during World
War II, flying Mosquito planes from Canada to England and on to Africa
for the RAF Transport Command. After the war, he completed his M.S.A.
and his doctoral studies on respiratory enzymes in wheat at the University
of Toronto in 1949 under the direction of Professor George H. Duff.
It was Dr. Duff who initiated the first of nine Annual
Research Conferences on Plant Physiology that resulted in the founding
of the Canadian Society of Plant Physiologists/La Société
Canadienne Physiologie Végétale in 1958. The first conference,
held at the University of Toronto, was centered on photosynthesis and
respiration. Roy contributed two papers—“Properties of Ascorbic
Acid Oxidase” and “Enzymes in Photosynthesis”—that
were typical of the subjects that occupied his research interests during
the rest of his career.
Roy joined the Department of Botany at McGill University
in 1949. In 1954, he and Marcel Cailloux co-hosted the 5th Annual Research
Conference on Plant Physiology, jointly sponsored by McGill University
and Université de Montréal. At the founding meeting of the
CSPP/SCPV in 1958, Roy was elected as the society’s vice president.
In the following year, he was elected as the society’s second president.
In 1954, he was appointed professor and head of the Department
of Botany at the University of Manitoba. He quickly established an international
reputation for his research on plant enzymes. He pioneered investigations
of the intracellular location, purification, and properties of carbonic
anhydrase and other carboxylases in leaves. With his students, postdoctoral
fellows, and colleagues, he carried out comprehensive studies on the mechanism
of indoleacetic acid oxidation, on the biosynthesis of purine, pyrimidine
and nicotinamide nucleotides and porphyrins and on phosphoenolpyruvate
carboxylase and other enzymes involved in carbon dioxide fixation in higher
plants and unicellular green algae. Several of his students have gone
on to establish distinguished careers in plant biochemistry.
During his career, Roy authored or co-authored 88 publications.
Among the honors and awards that he received are fellow of the Chemical
Institute of Canada in 1957, Canada Centennial Medal in 1967, and fellow
of the Royal Society of Canada in 1971.
Roy learned the joys of “hobby farming” at his
home on the outskirts of Winnipeg, where there were horses to ride and
hay fields to manage. Many of his students fondly remember “putting
up the hay” in early July of each year! Many also have fond memories
of his wife, Adoree, and daughter, Pamela, who survive him, and the wonderful
parties that the Waygoods gave for them at “the hobby farm.”
Roy relinquished the position of department head in 1975.
Upon his retirement in 1979, he moved first to Chilliwack, then to White
Rock and New Westminster before settling in Vancouver. There, he was reliably
reported to have abandoned horses and managing hay fields in favor of
long hours at the computer!
Roy Waygood should be remembered as an inspiration
to the generation of plant physiology and biochemistry students that he
trained and directed over a period spanning more than 30 years.
Paul R. Gorham
Professor Emeritus of Botany
University of Alberta
OBITUARIES
Evelyn A. Havir
Evelyn A. Havir, a longtime colleague in the Department
of Biochemistry and Genetics at The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment
Station, New Haven, and a scientist with a zest for life, died suddenly
of a stroke on September 23, 2002, at the age of 69.
Evelyn graduated in 1955 from Beaver College near her
family’s home in suburban Philadelphia with a degree in chemistry
and received a Ph.D. working on photosynthetic metabolism with Martin
Gibbs at Cornell University in 1962. She then did research on enzymes
related to arginine metabolism as a postdoctoral fellow with Sarah Ratner
at the Public Health Research Institute of the City of New York.
In 1964, Evelyn came to the experiment station as a postdoctoral
fellow working with Kenneth R. Hanson on purification and properties of
L-phenylalanine ammonia-lyase, the enzyme that functions as a gateway
to phenolic metabolism. Her contributions were recognized with an invitation
to become a member of the department, where she rose to a rank equivalent
to full professor. She later focused on characterization of catalase isoforms
and collaborated with Richard B. Peterson on purification of violaxanthin
deepoxidase and on characterization of Arabidopsis mutants with defects
in non-photochemical quenching. Although she formally retired in November
2001, she continued to work regularly in the laboratory alongside Carol
Clark, her technical assistant, for many years.
Her sheer enjoyment of the day-to-day conduct of science
is what we remember most. As Kenneth Hanson recalls, “Her desk was
always piled with copies of Science. She not only enjoyed her work,
but she believed biochemistry was vital for the future of agriculture.
She loved working out new techniques with new apparatus. She loved designing
experiments; she would slog away until the experiment worked, but then
she would agonize trying to decide whether the results in fact proved
her point until her friends had to rescue her from too much self-criticism.”
Outside of work, her passion turned to music, travel,
and gardening. She often attended the opera in New York and concerts of
the Yale String Quartet Series. She had many travel adventures with Art
Rickel, her devoted husband, pursuing their common interest in bird watching,
botany, and horticulture. Her home garden was so extensive that no lawn
remained, and weeds had little chance to compete.
Evelyn will be missed as a distinguished scientist, an
ideal collaborator, and a wonderful friend.
Israel Zelitch
Richard B. Peterson
The Connecticut Agricultural
Experiment Station
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