Gayle Corinne Timmons was an instructor in Foods and Nutrition from 1946 to 1949. She was born in 1925, in Eureka, California. She received her Bachelor of Science in Home Economics Education from OSC in 1946. She married and changed her name to Gayle C. Merlin in 1947. By 1948, while working as a part-time instructor, she finished off all the requirements for her Master’s degree. When a colleague, Miss Riedesel, fell ill, Merklin went full-time to cover her classes. By the next year, she was given a 5% raise for her able teaching, as well as her “real flare for food preparation.” She began in 1946 at a salary of $850 for part-time teaching, and resigned in 1949 at a full-time salary of $2,835.
Miriam Elizabeth Macpherson Holman was a Foods and Nutrition instructor at Oregon State College from 1944 to 1950. Holman was born in 1916, in Corvallis, Oregon. She received her Bachelor of Science in Home Economics Education from Oregon State College in 1937, and her Master of Arts in Foods and Nutrition from New York Teachers College in 1939. Before coming to work at Oregon State, Holman taught foods and nutrition at New York State Agriculture and Technical Institute. She was appointed as an instructor at Oregon State in 1944 at an annual salary of $2,400. Holman married Lenn C. Holman in 1950, and resigned from her position at Oregon State to join him in Portland.
Dr. Margaret Fincke was a home economics nutritionist at Oregon State College from 1935 to 1968. She was born in 1900, in Astoria, New York. Fincke received her A.B. from Mt. Holyoke College in 1921. She received her master’s degree from Columbia University in 1932, and her Ph.D. in 1935. Her dissertation for her Ph.D. was titled, “The Availability of Calcium from some Typical Foods”. She was also a member of the American Institute of Nutrition and the American Home Economics Association. Prior to coming to OSC, Fincke worked as an assistant researcher at the Chemistry Department at Columbia University. She began at OSC as an Associate Professor of Foods and Nutrition in 1935, becoming the first Ph.D. on the School of Home Economics staff. By 1943, she was promoted to the rank of professor. She became the head of the Foods and Nutrition Department in 1944. During World War Two, Fincke served on the Benton County Civil Defense Committee and was a nutrition chairman of the Benton County Red Cross. In 1955, she was nominated to become a consultant in Home Economics in Thailand for six months, following the contract formed between Oregon State and Kasetsart University. In the summer of 1961, she participated in the International Congress of Biochemistry in Moscow, Russia. She became Acting Dean of the School of Home Economics from 1963 to 1964 following the former Dean Scholl taking a sabbatical leave. Toward the end of her career, Fincke became president of the Oregon Dietetic Association. In 1966, she was nominated for the Oregon State University Alumni Association’s Distinguished Professor Award. She retired in 1968. By the end of her career, Fincke was an internationally recognized nutritionist, with significant contributions to the field of home economics and nutrition.
Clara A Storvick was a Professor in Foods & Nutrition and Chairman of Home Economics Research in the Experiment Station, from 1945 to 1972. She was born in 1906 in Emmons, Minnesota. She earned her Bachelor of Arts from St. Olaf College in 1929 in physiology and biology, her Master of Science from Iowa State University in 1933, and her PhD. from Cornell in 1941 in nutrition, physiology, and biochemistry. Her thesis for her master’s degree was titled “Effect of the ingestion of coffee on the calcium metabolism of the albino rat.” For her doctoral dissertation, her thesis was titled “Ascorbic acid metabolism studies in human beings.” In 1945, she came to OSC as she wanted to devote more of her time to research. She was said to be an inspiring and challenging teacher. In her research work, she was considered “imaginative, thorough, careful and scholarly.” She was interested in “fundamental investigations on man and his nutritive requirements.” She worked with ascorbic acid, thiamine, riboflavin, niacin, and vitamin B6 metabolism. She was considered a national leader in research on Vitamin B in the blood. In cooperative research she made “outstanding contributions.” Five states in the West, including Oregon, had previously done cooperative research on an informal basis with no budget, but she was the first to administer the regional funds available in the Research and Marketing Act. She led a group of twenty-two workers in the field and laboratory, and set an example for all the other Western states in studying nutritional status and dental care. She was a member of the American Institute of Nutrition, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the American Home Economics Association, among others. She held offices in the OSU chapter of Sigma Xi as secretary, vice president, and president. She was also Chairman of the Sabbatical Leave Committee of the American Association of University Professors. She received the Borden Award from the American Home Economics Association in 1952, the Distinguished alumni award from St. Olaf College in 1954, and the Sigma Xi lectureship from Oregon State University in 1953. She could write and speak Norwegian, and examined graduate students in Norwegian, Swedish, and Danish. She was named Associate Professor in 1945, and full Professor in 1948. In 1948, Storvick was offered a professorship at Cornell. In response, OSC raised her salary to $5565 per year. She took sabbatical leave in 1952 on half salary to study blood thiamine at Columbia University and nutrients in blood at the University of Copenhagen. She took another sabbatical leave for a few months in 1959, to participate in research on “enzymes, coenzymes, and vitamins” at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Her next sabbatical leave was for January-August in 1966, which she used to do research at the Cancer Research Hospital at the University of Wisconsin. In 1972, she became Director of the Nutrition Research Institute and Chairman of Home Economics Research. She was author or co-author of 71 publications on mineral, vitamin, and amino acid metabolism and relationship of nutrition to dental health. She was awarded emeritus status upon her retirement in 1972. She was employed on a part-time emergency basis the following summer.
June Harriet Sullivan was a research assistant from 1946 to 1949. She was born in 1917 in Sioux City, Iowa. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Bacteriology, with additional study in physiology and chemistry, in 1938 from the University of Tennessee. She earned her Master of Science from the same institution in 1939 in bacteriology and nutrition, with additional study in physiology. She did graduate work at Cornell. Her thesis for her master’s degree was titled “A Comparison of the Diagnostic Tests for Pullorum disease in chickens