Dr. Donald Morris Ross

ROSS

DR. DONALD MORRIS ROSS (Age 99)

Dr. Donald Morris Ross, a Manhattan Project chemist who later helped develop and implement radiation health and safety programs for the Atomic Energy Commission/Department of Energy, died peacefully on September 4, 2022, at Aegis Living in Kent, Washington.



When he retired in 1989, Dr. Ross was chief of the Occupational Safety Branch of the Department of Energy (DOE) in Germantown, Maryland. During his 31 years of distinguished public service, he mentored numerous industrial hygiene professionals. Among other things, he joined the DOE response to the Three Mile Island reactor accident (1979), was a member of the first occupational health delegation to China(1982), and led a radioactive waste technology delegation to Chernobyl, USSR (1989). Throughout his career, Ross was active in the Health Physics Society, American Industrial Hygiene Association, and the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists. When he retired, the Department of Energy created the Don Ross Award to recognize excellence in occupational safety among its employees and contractors.



Donald Ross was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin in 1923 to Walter Morris Ross and Mayme Olive (Fox) Ross. The son of a citrus-orchard sharecropper, Don was raised in South Texas in a one-room house without electricity or indoor plumbing. Nevertheless, he went on to earn his A.A. from Edinburg Junior College (1941), his B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Texas-Austin (1943), and his Master of Public Health degree (1953) and Doctoral degree in Occupational Health (1956) from the University of Pittsburgh's Graduate School of Public Health.



In 1943, he went to work for Tennessee Eastman, a division of Eastman Kodak,expecting to pursue his love of photography. However, he discovered his real job was to work as a Technical Supervisor at the Tennessee Eastman Oak Ridge, Tennessee Y-12 plant, which was part of the top-secret Manhattan Project. After an eight-month stint in the Army, where he was assigned to his same job at Y-12, he met and married the love of his life, Martha Jackson, an Alabama native who passed away in 2013. Throughout their 66 years together they enjoyed raising their large family, being active in their local Catholic parish, travelling, reading mysteries, playing bridge, cooking, and entertaining friends from across the country and around the world.



Ross was deeply devoted to his Lord and the Catholic church. He found comfort in the spiritual practices of saying the rosary and meditating on scriptures and the lives of the saints. He was a self-described "obsessive collector" (stamps, coins, menus, bookmarks, paperback mysteries, among many others), he could be intensively competitive at tennis and bridge, and he always "radiated" good humor, laughing easily, and loving much. Don was a very generous soul, supporting and taking great delight in his children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. He is deeply treasured as the one and only "Doop."



Ross is survived by his sisters, Ruth Mae Trudo of San Angelo, TX; Margaret Ann Greene of Tampa, FL; and Elizabeth Louise (Jim) Hall of Herndon, VA. Ross is also survived by his children: David (Bei DanQing) Ross of Houston, TX; Michael (Lilian) Ross of San Jose, CA; Katy (Rev. Joseph Lees) Ross of Eagan, MN; Greg (Jan) Ross of Cary, NC; John Ross of Palmdale, CA and Maria Ross-Lyons of Kent, WA. In addition,he is survived by 13 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.



A memorial service will be held on Saturday, October 8 at 11 a.m. at St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Covington, WA. Interment of ashes will occur on a later dateat Oak Ridge Memorial Park in Oak Ridge, TN. In lieu of flowers, memorials can be made to J. Lell Elliott-Don Ross Chemistry Endowment, which Ross created in 2018 to encourage undergraduate chemistry students at the University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley (which began as Edinburg Junior College).