Obituary for Otis Freeman Curtis
The Ithaca Journal, Jul 5 1949, P. 3, Col. 3, with photo in Col.4
"Prof. Otis Freeman Curtis of Forest Home, teacher at Cornell since 1913 and one of the world's leading plant physiologists, died unexpectedly Monday, July 4, 1949 at Chatham, Mass. He was 61.
He and Mrs. Curtis had been vacationing on Cape Cod with her brother, Paul Weeks, and were to have returned to Ithaca and gone to the North Bay area of Canada for the Summer. Last week Professor Curtis and a party of Cornell faculty members went fishing at Black Lake, north of Watertown.
Besides his wife, Professor Curtis is survived by 2 sons, Prof. Otis Freeman Curtis Jr. of the State Agricultural Experiment Station, Geneva, and Prof. William Edgar Curtis of St. Lawrence University, Canton; a daughter. Mrs. Frank Walkley of Castile; 6 grandchildren, and 2 sisters.
Funeral arrangements were not available today.
== Older Concepts Challenged ==
As a scientist, Professor Curtis challenged older concepts and set about in a methodical and effective way to find out the truth.
One of his major contributions was his book. "Translocations of Solutes in Plants." marking an epoch in understanding the way food materials and nutrients move within plants.
As a teacher, Professor Curtis was a brilliant success and had an extraordinarily high number of graduate students working for majors and minors in plant physiology. It was not exceptional for him to be serving on the committees of 40 or 50 graduate students at one time. He always tried to get students to think for themselves and to evaluate evidence behind any idea or practice. He was always available to graduate students for consultation, and took a very friendly attitude toward all his students.
He was born Feb. 12, 1888, in Sendai, Japan, and went to school in Pacific Grove, Calif., and in Unionville, Painesville and Ober-lin, Ohio.
== Played Football at Oberlin ==
He was graduated at Oberlin College where he received the A.B. degree in 1911 and at Cornell where he took the Ph.D. degree in 1916. While an undergraduate, he played guard on the Oberlin football team. One of his games was against Cornell on Percy Field in 1910.
Professor Curtis had been a friend since boyhood of L. H. MacDaniels, professor of horticulture at Cornell. Both men went to school and college together, where Professor MacDaniels played center on the football team, and both came to Cornell to teach.
Professor Curtis tutored at Oberlin Academy for a year after graduation, and came to Cornell in 1913 as instructor. Since 1922 he had been professor of botany and plant pathologist at the Cornell Experiment Station.
== Visiting Professor in England ==
In 1926-27 he was visiting professor at the University of Leeds, England, and in 1930-31 at Ohio State University. He went to Europe on invitation again in 1935.
He was president of the American Society of Plant Physiologists in 1937-38. He was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Botanical Society of America, the American Association of Naturalists, and the American Society for Horticultural Science. Other affiliations were Phi Kappa Phi, Gamma Alpha, and Sigma
At Cornell Professor Curtis was secretary of the Graduate School Faculty and chairman of the special university committee on evaluation and improvements of instruction, a group that has been working several years and will make a report this Fall.
== Textbook Finished ==
He had just finished a textbook, with Prof. D. G. Clark as junior author, on plant physiology to be published this Fall. He contributed to scientific journals the findings of his research on translocation foods in green plants, vegetative propagation and water and temperature relations of plants.
Professor Curtis was a member of the First Unitarian Church and the Ithaca Rotary Club. He had a fine bass voice, sang in his college glee club, and later with the Cayuga Singers in Ithaca and with a radio group. He was a member of the Unitarian Choir and chairman of the church musie committee.
Prof. Lewis Knudson, head of the Department of Botany at Cornell, paid the following tribute:
"The passing of Dr. Otis F. Curtis is a great loss to the Department of Botany and the University. Internationally recognized as one of the leading plant physiologists of the world, he was noted not only for his research work but for his ability as a teacher. His high ideals, his friendliness, and his marked ability in his chosen field gained not only the respect but the good will of all who knew him."