University of California: In Memoriam, March 1976
Tracy I. Storer, Zoology: Davis
| 1889-1973 | |
| Professor Emeritus |
Ortega y Gasset said: “To wonder, to be surprised is to begin to understand. This is the sport, the luxury, of intellectual man.” Tracy I. Storer exemplified Ortega's dictum as only an occasional individual has had the gift to do. His curiosity was boundless, whether with regard to man and other animals or plants, educational techniques or administrative procedures, photography or cars, electronics or music. To investigate these was his sport, his luxury.
Born in San Francisco, California, on August 17, 1889, he completed his entire education in the San Francisco Bay Area. He attended high schools in Oakland and entered the University of California at Berkeley in 1908. Majoring in zoology, he received his B.S. degree as a member of the famous class of '12, the M.S. in 1913, and the Ph.D. in 1921. In 1960 the University conferred upon him the LL.D. and in 1969 named the new zoology building on the Davis campus after him.
From 1914 to 1923 he was on the staff of the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology on the Berkeley campus, first as assistant curator of birds and later as field naturalist. These services were interrupted during World War I in which he served as a first lieutenant in the Sanitary Corps. In 1923 he joined the faculty of the University of California at Davis as assistant professor of zoology and assistant zoologist in the Experiment Station of the College of Agriculture. He was not only founder of the Department of Zoology at Davis but its sole faculty member until expansion began in 1935. He became professor emeritus in 1956.
Tracy had a meticulous and active intellect. Not only was he a “walking encyclopedia” on zoology, mammalogy, natural history, photography, and electronics, but his system of filing and storage enabled him to find any item in these categories quite promptly. For example, the color plates of birds in Animal Life in the Yosemite (1926) were pulled from a cabinet to be used in Natural History of the Sierra Nevada (1968). This precise competence was extended into his textbooks of zoology, which have been translated into a number of foreign languages
His bibliography contains over 200 titles of scientific articles and books. At the moment of his death, he was busily dictating.
Storer's influence on biological sciences extended far beyond publication of scientific studies. He was a member of numerous societies; in several of these he contributed his skills as administrator and editor. He was vice president and president of the Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, the Society of Mammalogists, the Society of Naturalists, and the Wildlife Society; three times president of the Cooper Ornithological Club; associate editor of Ecology and of Ecological Monographs, and editor of The Journal of Wildlife Management. In 1968 the California Academy of Sciences bestowed on him its Fellow's Medal.
On the Davis campus Tracy was an active force. He served on many committees of the Academic Senate. He was a leader in the founding of the Sigma Xi Club and was the first president of the Sigma Xi Chapter.
For some time before his death, Tracy was maintained on anticoagulant therapy to prevent coronary thrombosis. In June 1973, he elected to undergo a cataract operation, which needed the discontinuance of anticoagulant treatment and thus posed the danger of a coronary seizure. It was characteristic of Tracy that he undertook the risk, gambling on the recovery of his precious eyesight which served him so well. After the operation, he telephoned his friends to tell them that he could “read the phone book again.” His elation was high on his return home; he asked his wife Ruth to bring out a bottle of Pinot Noir to celebrate the occasion. Again, this is what we might expect of Tracy as showing his appreciation of good wine and his love of life. But Tracy did not live to drink the toast.
Tracy enjoyed good wine, good food, good music, good literature, and good company. He was an enthusiastic member of the Davis Wine and Food Society and in earlier days was equally enthusiastic about square dancing. He was a superb raconteur who relished his friends, but the most important person in his life was his beloved wife, Dr. Ruth Risdon Storer, who carried on a private medical practice in pediatrics and was a devoted and contributing partner in many of his scientific activities as well as in making a charming home and garden
Courtesy of University Archives, The Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-6000; http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/info
http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb9k4009c7&brand=oac4
Title: 1976, University of California: In Memoriam
By: University of California (System) Academic Senate, Author
Date: March 1976
Contributing Institution: University Archives, The Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-6000; http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/info
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