Obituary for David Sloan Masterman
The Ithaca Journal, Aug 19 1998, P. 4, Col. 3.
"SANTA FE. NM — David Sloan Masterman of Santa Fe, N.M., departed his life at his home on Saturday. August 15, 1998. He was 67.
A retired petroleum geophysicist, Mr. Masterman was a native of Ithaca, NY, a graduate of Ithaca High School, and a 1952 graduate of Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX. He attended Cornell University in 1949-50.
After a long career as a geologist with Humble Oil Company in California, Texas, and Oklahoma, Mr. Masterman, then a resident of Oklahoma City, was a manufacturers representative for furniture companies until his retirement to Santa Fe in 1982.
His survivors include his wife, the former Zoe Ann Mitchell, to whom he was married in 1956 in Los Angeles; two sons, John and George of Oklahoma City; three grand-children; and his brother John, of Tucson. He was the son of the late Nancy K. and Arthur J Masterman of Forest Home, Ithaca.
His life-long interest in scientific subjects was coupled with a love of the Southwest and the history of the Santa Fe Trail. He was known as an authority on the path the trail followed from Apache Canyon into Santa Fe itself and until his health failed he often escorted interested individuals and groups over the traces. During the Mexican War, one of his maternal great-grandfathers, Martin Kritser, of Independence, MO., brought one of the first freight wagons into Santa Fe after the American occupation in September 1846.
Mr. Masterman was a member of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists."