Bruce Merrifield was born in Fort Worth, Texas, July 15, 1921, the only son of George E. and Lorene (Lucas) Merrifield. In the spring of 1923 they drove across the southwest desert to settle in California where they lived in several cities throughout the state. He attended nine grade schools and two high schools before…

Fritz Pregl was born in Laibach on September 3, 1869, and attended the local “Gymnasium” (grammar school), from where he proceeded to the University of Graz to study medicine. He received his M.D. in 1894, but even prior to graduation he became assistant lecturer for physiology and histology under Alexander Rollett, taking over the chair…

Glenn Theodore Seaborg was born in Ishpeming, Michigan, on April 19, 1912. At the age of 10 he moved with his family to California, in 1929 he graduated at David Starr Jordan High School in Los Angeles as valedictorian of his class. He entered the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1929, and received the…

I was born a Kiwi (a New Zealander) in Masterton, New Zealand on April 14, 1927, and still am a Kiwi by New Zealand law, although I became a naturalized United States citizen many years ago in order to have the right to vote in US elections and, hence, voice my political opinions in a…

I was born at home in rural Kentucky in 1942, in a house that my father, Howard, had built. He did most of the construction himself and built it on land that his father had given him when he married my mother Faye. In some places, my birthplace is listed as Calvert City and in…

For the ten years from the third grade of elementary school to the end of high school, I lived in the small city of Takayama, a town of less than sixty thousand, located in the middle of Honshu, Japan. Even though it was far away from Japan’s principal cities, Takayama has been called a “little…

I was born in Montreal in 1939, the second son of poor immigrants. My mother worked in a textile mill and my father in a grocery store before they met and married. It was from them that I learned that hard work in stable surroundings could yield rewards, even if only in infinitesimally small increments.…

Wilhelm Ostwald was born on September 2, 1853, in Riga, Latvia, as the son of master-cooper Gottfried Wilhelm Ostwald and Elisabith Leuckel. He was educated at the “Real gymnasium” there and in 1872 was admitted to Dorpat University to read chemistry. After taking his final examinations three years later, he obtained the post of assistant…

Linus Carl Pauling was born in Portland, Oregon, on 28th February, 1901, the son of a druggist, Herman Henry William Pauling, who, though born in Missouri, was of German descent, and his wife, Lucy Isabelle Darling, born in Oregon of English-Scottish ancestry. Linus attended the public elementary and high schools in the town of Condon…

Grandfather Josef, a shoemaker, immigrated to the U.S. from Bohemia in 1913. My other grandparents, also of Czech origin, were first-generation Americans. My father was and is a physician, my mother the homemaker. I was born in Chicago on December 8, 1947. The safe streets and good schools of Iowa City, Iowa provided the backdrop…