Francis Cope Evans

EVANS FRANCIS COPE, retired ecologist and Professor Emeritus of Biological Sciences at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, died peacefully on August 16, 2002, following a short illness. He was 87. Francis Evans was born in Phildelphia on December 2, 1914, the son of Edward Wyatt Evans and Jacqueline Pascal (Morris) Evans and a member of an extended Quaker family. He was educated at Germantown Friends School and Haverford College. Between these he participated in the very first group of the Experiment in International Living, spending a summer in Germany in 1932. Upon graduation from Haverford in 1936 he was named a Rhodes Scholar and studied at Oxford University (Oriel College) with ecologist Charles Elton, earning a D.Phil. In 1939, he returned to the United States to pursue a career of research and teaching of zoology, specializing in ecology. He held fellowships and assistantships at the University of California at Berkeley, the Hooper Foundation in San Francisco and the University of California at Davis. He was called back to Haverford in 1943 to serve on the teaching faculty there, and as Acting Dean in 1944. In 1948 Francis joined the faculty of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, and was appointed a Professor of Zoology in 1959. During his tenure at Michigan he served as associate director of the E.S. George Reserve and as editor of publications of the Museum of Zoology. Upon his retirement in 1982 he was named Emeritus Professor and served in 1983 as President of the Ecological Society of America, from which he received the Distinguished Service Award in 1987. In addition to the ESA, Francis was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (to which he was elected a Fellow), the British Ecological Society, the American Society of Naturalists, and the Society of the Study of Evolution. He was also a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). Francis met his wife, Rachel Worthington Brooks of Milton, Massachusetts, during college years, when she was at Bryn Mawr College. They courted also on Mt. Desert Island in Maine, where both families spent summers. They married in 1942 and had four children: Kenneth Richardson Evans (Mary May) of Hurley, New York, etris teacherngston High School; The Rev. Katharine Cope Evans, Rector of Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Wakefield, Massachusetts; Edward Wyatt Evans II (Deborah Dawson), Professor of Biology at Utah State University in Logan Utah; and Dr. Rachel Howe Evans (Steven Julius), Internist in Tempe, Arizona. The family spent nearly every summer in Southwest Harbor, Maine. They also enjoyed Francis' visiting professorship at Berkeley in 1958, and sabbaticals back at Oxford as a Guggenheim Fellow in 1962-63, and at Christ Church, New Zealand as an Erskine Fellow in 1976-77. There are five grandchildren: Karen Evans, Rachel and Joanna Lisker, and Robert and Laura Evans. All the children and grandchildren gained from Francis and Rachel a great love of the outdoors and an appreciation and sense of responsibility for the environment. In addition to his wife of 60 years, children and grandchildren, Francis is survived by his brothers, Dr. Ernest M. Evans of Seattle, Washington, and Christopher Evans of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and his sisters, Dr. Katharine Evans Rhoads of Philadelphia, and Dr. Jacqueline P. Evans of Southwest Harbor, Maine. A service to celebrate Francis' life will be held at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, 306 N. Division St., Ann Arbor at 1:00 pm on Saturday, September 28th, with a Reception following. In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts may be made to the Robert Whittaker Travel Fund of the Ecological Society of America, 1707 H St., NW, Suite 400, Washington D.C. 20006, or to the University of Michigan's Matthaei Botanical Gardens, 1800 1800 N. Dixboro Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48105