John Alexander Hogg

John Alexander Hogg
John Alexander Hogg, 96, of Woods Hole, Mass., and formerly of Michigan, Butler and Connequenessing, passed away July 16.
He was born in Butler, on Nov. 6, 1915, to John Thompson and Helen Charlotte (Osgood) Hogg. John, the youngest of three children, was raised on the family's Pine Grove homestead in Connoquenessing. His father taught Latin, served as athletic director and retired as assistant principal at Butler High School. His mother attended Otterbein College in Ohio before settling in as a mother and homemaker.
Growing up in an intellectual family, with the woodlot, orchard and gardens of Pine Grove close at hand, proved fertile ground for John, a child with a naturally curious and active mind. He attended grade school in a one-room schoolhouse, where students warmed themselves in winter around a pot-bellied, coal-burning stove.
At Butler High School, John played violin in the school orchestra, competed on the swim team and worked summers on a fruit farm where honeybees were kept to pollinate the trees. Fascinated by the honeybee, he soon set up hives of his own at Pine Grove. As with his other boyhood pastimes of hunting and fly fishing, beekeeping remained a core interest and activity for most of his adult life.
John excelled academically from an early age. In 1933, following public school, he entered Grove City College, where he was a member of the Shakespeare Literary Club, all-college swim and water polo teams and rifle club. He graduated with a bachelor of science degree in 1937.
After two years teaching high school math and chemistry at Bruin High School, John enrolled at Pennsylvania State University to begin graduate studies in organic chemistry. He was awarded a master of science degree in 1940.
After working one year as a laboratory chemist for the United States Rubber Co., he returned to graduate school at Iowa State University. There, in 1944, he received a doctorate in organic chemistry and, following a one-year appointment as assistant professor of organic chemistry at Iowa State, joined the Upjohn Co. in Kalamazoo, Mich., as a research chemist in the chemistry department.
Subsequently, he became a group leader (1948), section head (1951), chemistry department head (1958), director of experimental chemistry (1969) and director of experimental sciences and therapeutics (1978).
John had the honor of working with many remarkable scientists and on several of the era's most fundamental pharmaceutical questions. He received the W.E. Upjohn Award in 1953 for outstanding contributions to the Upjohn Co. and the Outstanding Michigan Inventor Award in 1963 from the Michigan Patent Law Association for his many pharmaceutical discoveries.
He retired in 1981 from the company to which he was devoted.
While a student at Iowa State University, John met Mildred Johanna Hildremyr, a blue-eyed daughter of North Dakota and Norwegian immigrants. On Aug. 31, 1947, they married in her hometown of Petersburg, N.D. Mildred joined John in Kalamazoo and the couple embarked upon a 63-year partnership and shared journey.
In 1959, John and Mildred moved to 36 acres of forest and old field near Galesburg, Mich., where, on "Juniper Hill," they would remain for more than 40 years. They moved to the Fountains at Bronson Place, Kalamazoo, in 2003, where they remained until Mildred's death in 2009.
John's hobbies were numerous. They included deer hunting, fly-fishing, fly-tying, gardening, maple syrup production, rock hunting and lapidary. In particular, he never lost his boyhood fascination with honeybees. Soon after joining the Upjohn Co., he set up hives at his uncle's home on Barton Lake near Vicksburg, Mich.
He later moved the apiary to Juniper Hill and, with characteristic curiosity and analytical skill, initiated a 40-year series of experiments that would lead to several United States patents and 20 journal articles on inventions and topics related to apiculture. The inventions included a system for comb honey production, the Hogg Halfcomb, still in use today. Apiculture became something of a second career upon his retirement from Upjohn. He published his last bee article in 2006 at the age of 91.
Even in his final year, John read widely, exploring topics of interest with a dictionary at his side, all the while making characteristic and copious annotations in the margins of books, newspapers and letters.
John was preceded in death by his wife, Mildred, and brother, Calvin.
He is survived by his sister, Edith Parker of Poughkeepsie, N.Y.; his three children, Karen Dacey of Woods Hole, Mass., Jack Hogg (Beth Underwood), of Missoula, Mont., and Tom Hogg (Janine Hogg) of Laguna Niguel, Calif.; seven surviving grandchildren, John, Michael and Thomas Dacey, Bree and Keely Hogg and John and Nicole Hogg; and one great-grandchild, Louie Jack Rasmussen.
The family wishes to express their profound gratitude to Karen Dacey and Keely Hogg who provided loving care and a family environment in Karen's Woods Hole home during the last two years of his life.
HOGG - John Alexander Hogg passed away Monday, July 16, 2012.
John's ashes were placed alongside those of his wife, Mildred, by his family in the columbarium at First Presbyterian Church in Kalamazoo, Mich., on Aug. 24, 2012. At his request, there was no memorial service.
Condolence messages maybe sent to kkdacey@hotmail.com.
Arrangements were made by Chapman Cole and Gleason Funeral Home, Falmouth, Mass., 508-540-4172.