Dr. Clark Martin Blatteis

Dr. Clark Martin Blatteis passed away peacefully at home in his sleep on Sunday, March 14, 2021 at the age of 88. He will be remembered forever for his adventurous spirit and brilliance; for the generous love he gave to all his friends, family and colleagues; for the immense contributions he made to the scientific field of physiology and temperature regulation as a University Distinguished Professor, Emeritus, Department of Physiology and the Neuroscience Institute, College of Medicine, University of Tennessee Health Science Center; for his escape from Nazi Germany via the ship The St. Louis, for his service in the U.S. military achieving the rank of 1st Lieutenant; and for his public speaking on behalf of refugees.

He will be eternally connected with his beloved Yolanda Fuentes Blatteis who preceded him in death in 2018. He will be treasured as a shining example of resilience, courage and compassion. Clark is survived by three children, Beatrice Blatteis, Elisa Blatteis and Charles Blatteis and by their respective spouses, Carmen Palacios Blatteis and Matthew Roberts and his granddaughters, Leah Blatteis Palacios and Lily Blatteis Roberts.

A private family funeral will be held at 2pm on Tuesday and streamed live on the Temple Israel website at https://timemphis.org/watch-live/.

In lieu of flowers memorial donations may be made to the Jewish refugee organizations, Joint Distribution Committee at jdc.org or the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society at hias.org.

An Extraordinary History

Dr. Blatteis – many times over his life – faced seemingly insurmountable difficulties, yet he always came through against the odds propelled by the deepest sense of humanitarianism and the convictions of a scholar.

Born in pre-war Berlin, Clark and his family were dispossessed of everything as Nazis asserted control over Germany in the 1930s, temporarily imprisoning Clark's father in a concentration camp. Clark's father was released under the express condition that he leave Germany immediately. Clark and his parents became passengers of the infamous "Voyage of the Damned" in which the St Louis ocean liner was denied entry into its intended port of Havana, Cuba and then refused port anywhere despite pleas to the governments of both the United States and Canada. Their journey was followed widely in newsreels at the time allowing the Nazis a propaganda victory claiming that no one wanted the Jews. They returned to Europe and were ultimately divided among four countries: Britain, Belgium, France and the Netherlands.

The Blatteis family lived in Brussels for a year, leaving again to escape the advancing Nazi troops and spend World War II as refugees in Casablanca, Morocco. He learned French and achieved the highest score on the famed baccalaureate college placement exam in all of the French colonies at the time. He also learned English from the U.S. troops that liberated Casablanca and even Italian from the prisoners of war.

After the war, when Clark was 16 years old, his family was finally permitted to immigrate to the United States. The family settled in Irvington, NJ and Clark repeated one semester of his senior year, this time in English in an American high school. A struggling immigrant family meant all hands on-deck, and young Clark contributed as well. He worked odd jobs through high school and college, graduating early from Rutgers University with a BA in December of 1953.

A stellar student, he was accepted to Harvard Graduate school starting in the Fall of 1954, but with the advent of the Korean War and the draft, he could not attend. He was forced to choose to attend school by no later than the Spring of 1954 or be sent to see military action in Korea. Instead, he began studying at the University of Iowa in January of 1954 and earned both an MS (1955) and a PhD in Medicine (1957).

This series of events turned out to be fortuitous as it led to his meeting the love of his life, Yolanda Fuentes de Barriga, a beautiful young Peruvian exchange student studying at Oberlin, also at the top of her class. Together they traveled extensively. Yolanda introduced him to her large family where, picking up Spanish easily too, he was embraced as a beloved uncle.

They remained married for 61 years, until Yolanda's passing in 2018, and raised three successful children.

Dr. Blatteis served in the Army as a commissioned officer, as a 1st Lieutenant. He served at the US Army Medical Research Lab in Ft. Knox, KY from 1957 to 1961. This was followed by an NIH post-doctoral Fellowship for 1 year (1961-62) at San Marcos University in Lima, Peru to study altitude effects on newborns. He then spent the following year (1962-63) as an NIH post-doctoral fellow at Oxford University, Oxford, UK to analyze effects of altitude and cold in combination on neonatal metabolism. In England, he also had the opportunity to meet parts of his scattered German family with whom he remained close throughout his life.

After Clark's university training and fellowship, he commenced his professional career working for the U.S. Army to serve as a civilian researcher at the US Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine, in Natick, MA (1963-66). He then accepted position as associate professor of physiology at University of Tennessee (UT) College of Medicine in 1966, moved up the ladder through the years to University Distinguished Professor Emeritus and became semi-retired in 2008. Yet he kept an office at the university and kept working as a member of UT for over 50 years of service until his untimely death.

Dr. Blatteis' research has shaped our current understanding of fever through hundreds of research papers, textbooks, and by teaching his discoveries in thermal regulation through the discipline of integrative physiology. Specifically, he published 4 books plus had 1 in preparation. He also published over 200 original scientific articles and served as editor of several scientific journals. Clark presented innumerable lectures all over the world, and he trained 11 PhD students and 13 postdoctoral fellows. Procedures he has come up with, in particular for reducing dangerously high fevers in newborns quickly and safely, are in regular use by medical practitioners the world over saving lives every day.

Dr. Blatteis received so many honors and awards for his work that only a few can be mentioned here. The American Physiological Society inducted Dr. Blatteis into its "Living History of Physiology" project in 2007. He served as Chair of the International Union of Physiological Sciences; Thermal Physiology Commission, Treasurer of the Society of Neuroscience Memphis Chapter, member of the American Physiological Society's Public Affairs Committee, and Editor of the American Journal of Physiology – Integrative Physiology.

After retirement, Dr. Blatteis made a concerted effort to educate the public about the plight of refugees and of the dangers of fascism and anti-Semitism. In point of fact, the first chapter of Refuge Denied, published by the U.S. Holocaust Museum, details his family's famous story of persecution and flight from Nazi Germany. He has been interviewed numerous times including by "The Shoah Project." Dr. Blatteis made numerous presentations at a large number of K-12 institutions in Tennessee via the TN Holocaust Commission and the Facing History and Ourselves program because he felt them to be of paramount importance.

By the end of his life, he was able to marvel at the good fortune the fates had unexpectedly allowed him. Most especially, his love for Yolanda Blatteis whom he will be joined with for eternity today, March 16, their wedding anniversary.