James Gordon Carlson

Carlson, James Gordon, died Monday December 17, 2001 in NHC Farragut. He was born January 24, 1908, in Port Allegany, Pennsylvania. He was the son of James August Carlson of Port Allegany, Pennsylvania and Mable Johns of Marmora, Ontario, Canada. He attended the University of Pennsylvania, from which he earned the Bachelor of Liberal Arts and Doctor of Philosophy degrees. He was a faculty member at Bryn Mawr College from 1930-1935 and at the University of Alabama from 1935 to 1946. In 1946-1947 he was on the staff of the U.S. Public Health Service. In 1947 he became Head of the Department of Zoology and Entomology, at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. In 1955 he was named Alumni Distinguished Service Professor. After his retirement a plaque with his name was placed upon the door of a faculty carrel in the John C. Hodges Library. During the Second World War he served as a Special Consultant in Biology of the U.S. Public Health Service and taught a one-year class in Physics designed for highly selected army recruits in the Star Program. As a Rockefeller Fellow in the Natural Sciences in 1940-1941 he carried on cytology research at the University of Missouri, and as Public Health Service Special Fellow in 1965-1966 he carried on research at the Heidelberg University Institute for Experimental Cancer Research. In 1955 he served as Vice-President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and in 1961 as President of the Tennessee Academy of Sciences. Wife, Elizabeth Shirley Carlson of Knoxville; daughters, Shirley Bowen of Morrison, Colorado; Bette Carlson Schrader of Carrollton, Georgia; and son, James Marvin Carlson of Santa Ana, California; sister, Betty Cherrett of Clinton, N.Y.; grandchildren, Douglas H. Bowen, Leslie B. Wolfe, Elizabeth W. Schrader, Jennifer S. Bjornstad, Lesley W. Schrader and two great-grandsons. Entombment will be private at Sherwood Memorial Gardens. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to the John C. Hodges Library of The University of Tennessee at Knoxville, or to a charity of one's choice. Berry Funeral Home, Chapman Highway in charge of arrangements.