University of California: In Memoriam, September 1978
Lee Bonar, Botany: Berkeley
| 1891-1977 | |
| Professor Emeritus |
When Lee Bonar came to the Department of Botany at Berkeley in 1922, there were five other active faculty members. He was the first specialist on the fungi to be appointed here, and for some considerable period of his service he represented the field of cryptogamic botany in all its broad aspects. For fifty-five years, from Instructor to Professor, Emeritus, until he died of a heart ailment on March the first, 1977, Bonar was a valued member of the Berkeley faculty, a respected teacher, a quiet friend, and a steady support to his circle of students and colleagues.
Born in West Virginia, the fourth in a family of nine children, he grew up in a farming community and in a home where education was a byword. Both parents were teachers, and five of the children later became involved in teaching. Indeed, Alvin Franklin Bonar, Lee's father, taught country school for twenty years while running the family farm. Lee himself attended the local one-room country school until he was seventeen, secured a teacher's certificate when he was eighteen, and taught for two years, again in a one-room school to which he walked daily three miles each way.
Thereafter, with help from brothers and sisters and work as farm laborer, book salesman, waiter, and tire-factory piece worker, he attended college and graduated in the class of 1918 from the University of Michigan. Already drafted into the U.S. Army when he received his B.A., he served until July 1919 as a technician in the pathology laboratory of the army medical corps at Camp Lee, Virginia. After a summer on the plant disease survey of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Tennessee and southern Ohio, he returned to the University of Michigan, where he completed his Ph.D. in botany in 1922.
From his earliest studies in mycology at Michigan, throughout his entire life, Lee Bonar maintained an abiding interest in the fungi and developed an exceptionally comprehensive knowledge of these ubiquitous and important organisms. His own modest research work, documented in some twenty-three papers published between 1918 and 1971, shows special emphasis upon microscopic Ascomycetes and Deuteromycetes usually found on leaves and twigs of vascular plants and always obscure
However, one could not glean from his published papers alone the mycological contributions Bonar made to the campus and to the community in general. In forestry as well as plant pathology he was early recognized for his expert knowledge of the fungi, and he had close ties with these and other departments in the then College of Agriculture. He was an authority on wood-rot fungi. He also soon began active work on the mycological collections of the UC Herbarium and served as curator and curator emeritus of these collections from 1946 until his death. Even after retirement, he came regularly to the herbarium to continue his microscopic studies and the curatorial work he enjoyed so much. Besides the Bibliography of California Fungi distributed in 1942, the Host Index and Fungus Index of California Fungi grew out of his intimate special knowledge of those fungi occurring as parasites on both agricultural and native plants. This valuable resource, now totaling over 5,000 entries, is currently being prepared for publication. An activity seldom appreciated by those not directly involved arose from Lee Bonar's field experience and expertise in mushroom identification. Hospitals and physicians in the Bay Area called upon him at home as well as in his office, day or night, for urgently needed assistance in cases of supposed and actual mushroom poisoning. Many a distraught family will recall the relief they experienced with the professional assurance that the mushrooms eaten by their child were a nonpoisonous species!
As Instructor (1922-26), Assistant Professor (1926-32), Associate Professor (1932-46), and Professor (1946-58), Lee Bonar made an immeasurable contribution to the Department of Botany. Always a kind and patient person, in his early Berkeley days with peppery older colleagues he was known as the “Peacemaker.” His many years as either acting or official chairman of the department during World War II (1942-45) and thereafter (1947-54) will be recalled with affection as times of benevolent and understanding direction. Above all, however, are to be remembered the long years of conscientious and informed work as a teacher at all levels. Nineteen students worked for graduate degrees under his direction, and two of his Ph.D. students achieved wide acclaim, one as first chancellor on the Davis campus (Emil Mrak), the other as provost at the University of Pennsylvania (David Goddard). Generations of undergraduates and graduates will remember their thorough introduction to the primitive groups of the plant world in laboratories filled with living material and in lectures by a modest teacher
A big man, both in stature and in person, he was unassuming, almost never angry, always ready to help, and above all patient, kind, and dependable. He is survived by a wife Margaret, a schoolteacher daughter, and a biochemist son. Students, colleagues, friends, and family will all remember this fine man with lasting affection.
Courtesy of Academic Senate, Berkeley Division, 320 Stephens Hall, UC Berkeley Berkeley CA 94720-5842
http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb4q2nb2nd&brand=calisphere
Title: 1978, University of California: In Memoriam
By: University of California (System) Academic Senate, Author
Date: September 1978
Contributing Institution: Academic Senate, Berkeley Division, 320 Stephens Hall, UC Berkeley Berkeley CA 94720-5842
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University of California Regents
Academic Senate-Berkeley Division, University of California, 320 Stephens Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720-5842