Walter Curran Mendenhall: Quaker Scientist

摘要

Walter Curran Mendenhall (1871-1957) was one of the U.S Geological Society's (USGS) first ground water hydrologists. Mendenhall is remembered not so much for his technical contributions as for his integrity and outstanding administrative abilities. Asked to list his occupations upon election to the National Academy of Sciences, this quiet man modestly wrote, "farmer, student, and geologist." Mendenhall's father, William King Mendenhall, was a Quaker whose ancestors had emigrated from England with William Penn to escape religious persecution. Around the middle of the 19th century, the Mendenhall family moved to Ohio where Walter Curran was raised on a farm near Marlboro, a Quaker cultural and religious center. Mendenhall's mother, Emma Pierce Garrigues Mendenhall, was a Quaker schoolteacher. Mendenhall later described his mother as "steady, stable, self-controlled, retiring, and fond of reading." Associates of Mendenhall would later ascribe these same characteristics to the son (Nolan 1975). At the age of 14, Mendenhall was sent to live with his uncle in Portland, Oregon, for the sake of obtaining a high school education that was unavailable in the small country town of Marlboro. Upon his return to Ohio, Mendenhall taught school for a short time before enrolling at Ohio Normal University in Ada.