Roger Wayne Wallace, Ph.D.
Father, Teacher, Friend
1919 -2011
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Roger Wayne Wallace, Ph.D. died Feburary 1, 2011 at 11:37 am at the age of 91. He is survived by his three children Elizabeth Karen Wallace Jones of Dixon, CA, Douglas Charles Wallace, M.D. of Carterville, IL, and Arthur William Wallace, M.D., Ph.D. of San Rafael, CA, and by his wife Gretchen McDonald, Ph.D. of Malahat, BC. He died in Victoria, British Columbia after complications from a stroke.
Roger Wallace was born in Baltimore, Maryland on October 30, 1919. He was the only child of Roger WayneWallace Sr., a real estate lawyer for Sears Roebuck and Elizabeth Thompson Wallace. As a child, Roger enjoyed photography, including color photography which, when he was young, required using three different colored starch granules to make colored images.
Roger grew up in both Chicago and Miami Beach, commuting by train between the two to avoid the Chicago winters. He was in Miami in 1926 when a hurricane destroyed the city. His house was flooded, school was cancelled for a year, his family car was conscripted by the Red Cross, and he avoided drowning when the eye of the hurricane went over by listening to his mother when she refused to allow him to play on the beach and pick up fish as the eye went over. He attended high school at Oak Park High in Chicago.
In Miami Roger became an excellent swimmer and served as a life guard at Oak Park High in the boys’ gymnasium, as he said, “to avoid playing football in shorts in the snow”. His responsibilities included running the washing machine for students prior to entering the pool, inspecting students for dirt, testing specific gravity of students (float test), running the electric arc sterilization system for pool water (no chlorine was used), and rescuing the occasional student by poking them with a long pole. Male students swam in the nude at Oak Park High, although he was allowed to wear a swim suit as life guard. The school was co-ed. The girls had a separate pool and did have swim suits. They were allowed to visit the boys pool to observe “swimming technique”.
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