Austin Murray Evans

Austin Murray Evans, June 15, 1932 - October 6, 2023, beloved husband of Diane (Dee) Montie and loving father of Karin, Mark, and Tim, died at Foulkeways at Gwynedd, Pennsylvania, where he and Dee resided since 2017.
Murray was a field botanist and specialist in the taxonomy of pteridophytes (ferns), holding the PhD in Botany from the University of Michigan. As professor at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville 1964-1994, he shared his passions for plants and their habitats with generations of students. He was a leader at the Wildflower Pilgrimage in Gatlinburg, TN for decades. He located and photographed hundreds of species, in the wild, for the definitive Field Manual of the Ferns & Fern-allies of the United States & Canada, published by the Smithsonian Institution Press in 1985.
Murray and his first wife, the late Mary Comstock Evans, met at Oberlin College and went to Taiwan for two years to teach English as representatives of the Oberlin Shansi Memorial Association. They raised their three children in Knoxville, where they were active members of the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church. A lifelong hiker and canoeist, Murray shared his love of the forests and rivers of the southeastern mountains with his children.
Murray married Dee, a fellow traveler and avid hiker, in 1985. Murray served for many years on the Board of Directors of the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy, of which he and Dee were benefactors, advocating for the expansion of its land trust in the Roan Mountain area on the border of Tennessee and North Carolina.
Following the pattern of his parents and sister, Murray and Dee bought a house in the rural village of Brookfield, Vermont, a beautiful wooded neighborhood, when he retired. They began spending long summers there and by 2000 they were settled year-round. They joined the Unitarian Church of Montpelier and made many friends. Murray's gardens in Vermont bloomed with flowers, berries, tomatoes, herbs and vegetables, and grandchildren.
Murray was a kind and loving presence in our lives, and we give thanks for all the gifts of his life. His heart had room for us all, children and stepchildren and spouses, ten grandchildren and three great-grands, a family tree gone to seed. Grandpa Murray will be well remembered and greatly missed. We hope he is in a place where he can see the harvest of all the love he sowed, as he walks trails along mountain ridges and paddles wild lakes and rivers.
A memorial service will be held at the Gwynedd Friends Meeting on Monday, November 20th, 2023 at 3:30 pm.
The family requests that memorial donations be given to the Oberlin Shansi Memorial Association at https://www.shansi.org/vision-and-mission or the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy. at https://appalachian.org/