I learned that my first PhD student, John Southin, died in
Brockville, Ontario December 29, 2014.
He was in my Biology course at Queen’s University in Fall 1958. I had just completed my PhD at Indiana
University and was settling in to Kingston, Ontario. John was an exceptionally good student in my
course and I invited him to do an undergraduate research project in my
laboratory which was in the basement of the Theology building. John grew up in
Brockville, Ontario. He enjoyed witty conversation and it was fun when his
fellow students dropped by the laboratory. When I married Nedra in 1959, I was
also invited to join the faculty at UCLA.
I asked John if he would like to go with us to California and work in my
laboratory there. We drove from Kingston
through the highways and old US 66 into the Mojave dessert. It was an adventure because I was the driver
and neither Nedra nor John knew how to drive.
Also our baby Christina, born in Kingston, was in the car.
At UCLA, John flourished as a graduate student
and worked on a good dissertation project studying chemically induced types of
mosaicism in mutations. He became
progressively disillusioned with American foreign policy and went to Cuba and
taught in Havana for several summers. After his PhD he went to McGill
University to teach. He founded an androgynous
bookstore for the LGBT community in Montreal.
He set up a teaching program for prisoners in Quebec province. At McGill he had a very popular course in molecular
genetics. When he became Director of the
dormitories he exposed and expelled corrupt dealers of food for the
students. He taught and inspired many
students at McGill. When he retired he returned to Brockville. He used his
skills to restore old Colonial era stone homes and sold several so he could
provide one for himself. He became
active in Brockville health programs for the poor and the elderly. He lived with his partner of many years and
wrote a local news column on local affairs and health issues. He died of a late onset neuromuscular disease.
John had the courage to embrace causes that
made him controversial. When he left
UCLA to go back to Canada he became part of the “underground railroad” for war
resisters in the US protesting the draft for the Vietnam War. He helped them get entry and jobs in Canada. When he volunteered he was gay in Havana he
was expelled from Cuba. One of my favorite conversations with John was when I asked
him, at UCLA, why he had framed pictures of Queen Elizabeth II and Marshall
Tito on his laboratory wall. He said the
Queen was the symbolic head of the United Kingdom and politically powerless,
unlike US Presidents who are politically powerful and therefore poor symbols of
the government as a whole. As for Tito,
he was the first to break with the USSR, establishing a socialism that was independent
of the Politburo in Moscow. It was the
model he hoped to see in Cuba. He enjoyed the irony of helping impoverished
Cuban students but carrying his lecture notes in a $400 alligator attaché case he
bought in Los Angeles. Every Christmas
John and I exchanged New Years cards with a letter updating our lives. I did not know he was ill. I shall miss him.
