Nicholas Wright Gillham

1932 - 2018

Nicholas Wright Gillham

Pittsboro

Nicholas Wright Gillham, James B. Duke Professor Emeritus of Biology at Duke University, died on March 19 of a heart attack suffered at his home at Galloway Ridge at Fearrington, near Pittsboro, NC. A noted geneticist, educator and author, he was born May 14, 1932, in New York City and was educated at The City and Country School, New York, and the Loomis School, Windsor, CT. He earned three degrees at Harvard University, including his Ph.D in 1962 following three years in the Air Force Medical Service as an entomologist. From 1961-1963, he was a post-doctoral fellow at Yale University and then returned to teach at Harvard as instructor and assistant professor.

In 1956, he married Carol Collins of Troy, New York, a Wellesley graduate he first met in 1951. She is a retired art curator and survives her husband after almost 62 years of marriage. He is also survived by his younger brother, Robert Gillham II, of Glen Rock, NJ, his wife, Carol, and their two sons, Robert (Sophia Malamud) and Timothy, in addition to Carol's many nieces and nephews.

Nick's father, Robert Marty Gillham, was a motion picture advertising executive and his mother, Elizabeth Enright Gillham, was a writer of still much-loved children's books and short stories. Nick's grandmother, Maginel Wright Enright Barney, the younger sister of Frank Lloyd Wright, was an illustrator and artist. His grandfather, Walter J. Enright, was a political cartoonist. Nick's youngest brother Oliver and his wife Janis both predeceased him as did his devoted Labrador, Lily Rose.

In 1968 Nick joined the Duke University faculty and was named to his distinguished professorship in 1982. He served as chairman of the Department of Zoology from 1986-1989. Supported with grants from the NIH, the NSF and the Department of Energy, Nick and John Boynton, professor of Botany, ran a large and successful genetics laboratory for over thirty-four years. His scientific accomplishments also included co-authorship of a 1973 textbook on microbiology and two books, in 1978 and 1994, on his special interest, the genetics and molecular biology of cellular organelles called chloroblasts and mitochondria. Nick's honors included membership on many editorial boards and national panels. He served on the President's Biomedical Research Panel in 1975. He had a 12- year term as a board member and chair of the American Type Culture Collection in Rockville, MD. In 1972-1977, he was supported by a US Public Health Service career development grant. He spent a sabbatical at Rockefeller University in 1974-75 and in 1984-1985 received a Guggenheim fellowship grant allowing him to pursue his research at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. NY.

In mid-career, Nick developed an interest in the social aspects of genetics. Realizing the sensitive matter of eugenics led to the publication in 2001 of a well-received book, A Life of Sir Francis Galton. Galton was a cousin of Charles Darwin and himself a significant scientific figure in Victorian England, if today a controversial one. Research for the Galton book was conducted primarily in the archives at University College London. During this time, Nick became a member of the East India Club.

Following his retirement in 2002, Nick published Genes, Chromosomes, and Disease, 2011, to provide technically accurate guidance on the emerging subject of "personalized medicine" to lay persons interested in or afflicted by genetic diseases.

Above all else, Nick was a naturalist. As a small child, "Nicky" spent many summers at Taliesin, the home of Frank Lloyd Wright in Spring Green, WI, chasing butterflies and learning to identify the birds and flowers in those beautiful surroundings. As a teenager, he was very proud of his summer job at the Museum of Natural History in New York working as a young volunteer in the butterfly collection. From the late 1930s, Nick summered with his family in Wainscott, Long Island. In 1966, when he was still teaching at Harvard, Nick and Carol bought their own cottage in nearby Sagaponack, which has ever since kept them close to their northeastern roots, with summers spent with New York friends and members of the Georgica Association.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be made to The Nature Conservancy for the use and benefit of the Long Island (New York) chapter, 4245 North Fairfax Drive, Suite 100, Arlington, VA 22203-1606 or to the Chatham Animal Rescue (C.A.R.E.) P.O. Box 610, Pittsboro, NC 27312

There will be a memorial service held at Galloway Ridge on Monday, May 14, at 3:00 p.m. in the Chapin Auditorium.