Dr. Richard E. Cline

1921 - 2012

Dr. Richard E. Cline, age 91, died May 7, 2012 in Atlanta, GA, and was buried in the Georgia National Veterans Cemetery in Canton, GA.

He was born February 13, 1921 in Mt. Jackson, VA in the home of his grandparents in the Victorian house (c.1875) in the center of town. He was the son of Jesse W. Cline and Mabelle Dingledine Cline. The family lived in Iowa and Pennsylvania, then returned to the Dingledine home in 1934.

Upon graduating from Triplett High School, Richard won a 4-year chemistry scholarship to the College of William and Mary. After his service in chemical warfare for the U.S. Army Air Force in the Pacific arena, he returned to Mt. Jackson and pursued graduate work at Indiana University under the G. I. Bill, receiving his PHD in Organic Chemistry in 1949.

He worked in research at Caltech in Pasadena (1948-1951) where he married Janet Kunzelman, at Purdue University (1951-1952) at Caltech (1952-1953) and at UCLA Medical School in Los Angeles (1953-1961).

From 1961 until his retirement in 1990, he worked at the Center of Disease Control in the facilities in Savannah and Atlanta. His specialty was toxicology in the fields of insect biochemistry, pesticides, and gas chromatography which he used to investigate poisoning incidents around the world. His research appeared in numerous chemistry journals. His work on Legionnaires Disease wads televised on NOVA.

Dr. Cline is survived by his wife, Janet, his sons, Kenneth and Ronald, and daughter, Karen Ducote, three grandchildren, two great-grandsons, all in Georgia; and his sister, Jessie Cline McCardell in Maryland.

He was the sixth- generation descendent of a Lutheran minister (George Klein) who emigrated to New Jersey from Germany's Saar Valley in 1738.

Sign the Guest Book at www.nvdaily.com/obituaries