Volume 28 · Number 3 · Spring 2011
In Memoriam
From left: Jack Forbes, Shirley Goldman, Margaret Meyer and Tom Richardson
Jack Forbes, an acclaimed author, activist, founding faculty member of the Native American studies department and leader in the tribal college movement, died in February at a Davis hospital. He was 77. A faculty member during 1969–94, he also influenced the creation of Native American studies at other universities. An article he wrote in 1966 helped ignite the tribal college movement and led to the 1971 founding of D-Q University near Winters. His books include Columbus and Other Cannibals; The American Discovery of Europe; Red Blood: A Novel; Only Approved Indians; Apache, Navaho and Spaniard; and Africans and Native Americans. His numerous honors and awards included the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas, the American Book Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Before Columbus Foundation and the Wordcraft Circle Writer of the Year award in prose and nonfiction. In retirement, he continued to teach and served on committees of Native American graduate students.
Shirley Goldman, a math lecturer during 1959–89 and a former associate dean of the College of Letters and Science, died in her Davis home last December after a 2 1/2-year battle with cancer. She was 80. She was a charter member of the UC Davis chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa honor society, a board member of the Library Associates and the Davis Emeriti Association, and a benefactor of music scholarships, the Tahoe research center and other UC Davis programs. A longtime community volunteer, she was named Davis' 2009 Citizen of the Year.
Veterinary Professor Emeritus Margaret Meyer, Ph.D. '61, a world expert on brucellosis who spent 40 years in public health medicine at UC Davis, died last October after a long struggle with pulmonary disease. A resident of Carmichael, she was 87. She came to campus in 1947 as a swine brucellosis control agent for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. After completing her doctorate in comparative medicine, she worked a decade as a research microbiologist, and then served on the veterinary public health faculty during 1972–87. Her research on brucellosis helped to classify different strains of the disease, which infects cattle, bison and other livestock and wildlife and can spread to people. She is also remembered as a pioneering advocate for women in academia.
Tom Richardson, a food science professor emeritus and an authority on the chemistry and biotechnology of milk proteins, died last October in Colorado from complications of a fall. He was 78. He joined the faculty in 1984 as the first holder of the Peter J. Shields Chair of Dairy Food Science, which was established with funding from the California Milk Advisory Board and the California Marketing Milk Advisory Board. Professor Richardson previously spent 22 years teaching and conducting research at the University of Wisconsin. Among other honors, he received a 1981 Borden Award and a 1989 Pfizer Award from the American Dairy Science Association. He retired in 1991.
Peter Catlin '52, M.S. '55, Ph.D. '58, a pomology faculty member during 1960–92, died in November in Davis of heart failure after a long illness. He was 80. As a UC Davis undergraduate, he played halfback for the football team and served as president of the athletic letter-winners' Block CA Society. He also served as president of Phi Sigma Kappa in spring 1952, when the fraternity planted the olive trees that line the north edge of campus. His research focused on root physiology, salinity and waterlogging in fruit and nut trees and jojoba plants. Survivors include his son, Dave Catlin '85.