Remembrance

Linus Pauling's humble marker at the Oswego Pioneer Cemetery.

Fifteen years ago, on August 19, 1994, at around 7:20 PM PDT, Dr. Linus Pauling died at the age of 93, a victim of prostate cancer.

Pauling was cremated and, some eleven years later, his and Ava Helen’s ashes were interred at the Oswego Pioneer Cemetery, the final resting place of Pauling’s parents Herman and Belle, and his sister Pauline, among other family members.

Pauling’s Memorial Service

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Celebrate the life, work and legacy of Linus Pauling by reading The Pauling Chronology.

Linus Pauling, 1975.

Checking in on Condon

Main Street, Condon, Oregon. August 2009.

Over time we have written with some frequency about Condon, Oregon, the small farming community where Linus Pauling spent much of his youth.  And though we have come know a fair amount about the history of this little town in Gilliam County, it was not until recently that the Blog had an opportunity to actually visit the area and take a few pictures.  Here are a few things that we saw:

Herman Pauling’s pharmacy building, written about here, no longer exists.  In its place is a lovely little park.

Former location of Herman Pauling's drugstore. Now a park on Main Street, Condon.

Gone too is Pauling’s first school – the Condon Grade School built in 1903.

Condon Grade School, built 1903. Photo courtesy of the Gilliam County Library.

Linus Pauling (far right) with his Condon elementary classmates, 1909.

We had known about Pauling Field at the Condon State Airport, but this was our first glimpse.

Pauling Field, Condon State Aiport.

We had also known about Linus Wilson Darling’s (Pauling’s maternal grandfather) grave, which is located at the Condon City Cemetery, but did not realize that he was buried next to Florence Darling, one of his six children, a toddler who died twenty-two years before her father at the age of two.

The Condon City Cemetery.

Linus Wilson Darling's marker, Condon City Cemetery.

Grave of Florence Darling, Condon City Cemetery.

Close inspection of L. W. Darling’s marker indicates that he was very proud of his fraternal memberships – the plaque notes that “Here Rests a Woodman of the World” and elsewhere bears a symbol of the Knights of Pythias.  And though most of the marker has not been restored, the spherical stone at its peak appears to have been turned to a more symmetrical position, at least when compared with this 1988 photo.

Linda Pauling Kamb, Linus, Pauline and Lucile Pauling at the grave of L. W. Darling, Condon, Oregon. 1988.

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Our trip to Condon was rendered decidedly more fruitful by a visit to the terrific Gilliam County Historical Society museum which features, among other artifacts, an antique bicycle-powered jigsaw.  The society’s collections also include a few very rare images of William P. Murphy (Condon’s “other” Nobel Prize winner) who, as it turns out, was a member of Condon High School’s first graduating class in 1909.

The Condon High School class of 1909. William P. Murphy (incorrectly identified as Will J. Murphey) is seated at the far right.

Here’s an Oregonian image of Murphy and his family as they set off to Sweden for the Nobel festivities in 1935.

William P. Murphy and family en route to Sweden. Image first published in the Sunday Oregonian, July 21, 1935.

The Historical Society’s Pauling-related collection includes a fabulous vertical file of stories that appeared in the local media throughout the years.  One such article, written in 1969 during Pauling’s trip to Corvallis for the centennial celebration of Oregon State University, recounts many of the more interesting details of Pauling’s colorful family history.

All the Darlings were highly intelligent people, although some had quite a percentage of oddity.  W. L. Darling, ‘Bill’ a brother of L. W. Darling, was a paper hanger and a painter.  He was also a confirmed spiritualist.  His control was an Indian named ‘Red Cloud.’  Chatting with the spirits was an every evening affair with Bill.  He was trying to get the spirits to tell him the location of the lost gold mine in the Lonerock Country.

The article further notes that

Pauling’s aunt Stella Darling was a safe expert.  She could open any safe and had a national reputation.  She once traveled to London, England to open a safe.

The vertical file likewise includes documentation of various births, weddings and deaths, most of which are written with a great deal of local flavor.

Announcement of Herman Pauling's wedding to Belle Darling, Condon Globe, May 1900.

Announcement of the births of Linus and Pauline Pauling, and the death of Herman Pauling. Condon Globe and Condon Times, 1901, 1902, 1910.

Announcement of the birth of Lucile Pauling, Condon Globe, 1904.

Our favorite item though, is this announcement of the marriage of either H. C. Pauling or Louis Carl Pauling to Miss Ava Helen Miller, as reported in the Condon Globe Times on June 29, 1923.  Note, in particular, the flipped ninth line of the first paragraph – part of the cost of doing business during the era of handset news type.

"Former Condon Boy Married," Condon Globe Times, June 29, 1923.

Condon is not an easy place to access – it was built to serve the needs of area farmers and is nowhere near a major highway.  Our afternoon in the town was, however, defined by the kind of small-town hospitality that would seem a cliché were it not so genuine.  We’re already planning a return visit.

For more stories of Linus Pauling’s life and times in Oregon, see our continuing series commemorating the Oregon150 celebration or visit the Linus Pauling Online portal.

Lucile Pauling (1904-1992)

Francis Lucile Pauling, 1923.

Less is known of the youngest Pauling sibling than is the case with Linus and Pauline Pauling. What can be said is that, of Herman and Belle Pauling’s children, Lucile—quiet, shy, and warmhearted—was the least hardheaded of the three. Always unsettled when trouble arose between family members, she often took on the role of peacekeeper in the Pauling family.

Frances Lucile Pauling, known to everyone as “Lucile,” (and named after one of her mother’s favorite poems, “Lucile” by Owen Meredith) was born in Oswego, Oregon on New Years Day, 1904. Though both her brother and sister remained rather skeptical of their upbringing, Lucile would always remember a happier, more normal childhood – despite circumstances that might suggest otherwise.

Following Herman’s death in 1910, Belle Pauling, overwhelmed by the prospect of raising three children without financial support, opened a boardinghouse with the hopes of providing a living for herself and her children. After both Linus and Pauline left home when they were just teenagers, Lucile stayed behind to care for her mother and help look after the boardinghouse. Belle, whose pernicious anemia often kept her bedridden for long periods at a time, had relied heavily on her children to help make ends meet.

Lucile, Linus, Belle and Pauline Pauling, 1922.

From an early age, Lucile devoted herself to her music. An accomplished pianist, she studied and taught music lessons when she wasn’t helping her mother.

In 1926, Belle, her health deteriorating, sold her boardinghouse for the amount of ten dollars. The buyer and new owner, at least on paper, was Lucile. After renting out the boardinghouse, Lucile and her mother moved to a nearby apartment, where Belle’s pernicious anemia intensified following the move. Her symptoms became so severe that Lucile could no longer care for her. In turn, Belle’s sister, Goldie, was called upon for help.

Pauline (second from left) and Lucile Pauling on a camping excursion with two friends, ca. 1920s.

As a result, Belle was admitted to the state hospital for the insane. Upon visiting for the first time, Lucile was so overwhelmed by the sight of her mother in the mental ward that she tearfully begged that Belle be removed. Unfortunately, Lucile’s request could not be fulfilled and Belle, at the age of forty-five, died just weeks after being admitted. Later, burdened with disappointment, Lucile wrote to her brother, “I left decisions, [Belle’s] care, everything, up to others, being absolutely immature and irresponsible, and easily led.” She would always regret not knowing how to better care for her mother.

In the late 1930s, while working as a secretary in Portland, Lucile married Lemual Lawrence Jenkins (known as “Jenks”). Their son Donald was born soon after and the family settled in Estacada, Oregon. Lucile cared for the family home while continuing her music studies, teaching lessons and accompanying local musicians on the piano. Due to Jenks’s “restlessness,” the couple moved eight times in Estacada, finally finding the right place just before his death in 1965.

The Pauling and Jenkins families: in back, Linda Pauling, Don Jenkins, Crellin and Peter Pauling; in front, Linus and Ava Helen Pauling, Lemual and Lucile Jenkins. 1948.

Though she was keenly interested in her family genealogy, scant documentation of Lucile’s own golden years remains extant. She did not remarry and was plagued by chronic health problems – little else is recorded in the Pauling collection.

A sufferer of heart disease, Lucile died on January 19, 1992 of ventricular fibrillation. At eighty-eight years, her life was the shortest of the three Pauling children – Linus lived to 93 and Pauline to 101 – a remarkable fact given the short life-spans of Herman and Belle Pauling, who lived to ages 33 and and 45 respectively.

Linda, Linus, Pauline and Lucile Pauling at the grave of Linus Wilson Darling, Condon, Oregon, 1988. In retirement, Lucile maintained a keen interest in her family genealogy.

For more on Linus Pauling’s relationship with Oregon and its inhabitants (including his other sister Pauline) please see our year-long blog series commemorating the Oregon150 celebration.

Pauline Pauling (1902-2003)

Pauline Pauling with her sister Lucile, 1916.

My name is Pauline Darling Pauling Stockton Ney Dunbar Emmett, and you can see I’ve had an interesting life…

-Pauline Pauling Emmett, 1994.

The sister of one distinguished scientist and later the wife of another, Pauline Darling Pauling, the second oldest of the Herman and Belle Pauling’s children, led a long and eventful life. Once a record-breaking typist, a famous women’s athletic director, and a successful designer and businesswoman, Pauline found success in a plethora of careers and hobbies. Although she remained close to her Nobel Prize-winning brother over his lifetime, Pauline harbored more artistic aspirations than scientific ones. In addition to her professional success, she was a seamstress, quilter, painter, and coin and doll collector.

Pauline Pauling was born in Portland, Oregon on August 2, 1902. She remembers her childhood in Condon as “very stark,” remarking that “it was a wonder [the family] survived.” Following her father’s death in 1910 and the family’s ensuing financial trouble, her mother, Belle Darling Pauling, opened a boardinghouse to support the family. Linus, Pauline, and their younger sister, Lucile, were responsible for the many domestic duties of the boardinghouse as their mother, suffering from a general weakness (later diagnosed as pernicious anemia), had become increasingly dependent on the help of her children.

Pauline Pauling on a hiking excursion in the Oregon forest, 1921.

Pauline, an extrovert by nature, couldn’t wait to escape the small-town life of Condon. An energetic and pretty girl, Pauline became something of a socialite as a teenager.

She dated a string of boys, frequently attended swimming and singing events, and often arranged social get-togethers. As a student at Franklin High School in Portland, Pauline dropped out for a year to attend the Behnke-Walker Business School. There she learned Pitman shorthand and the touch system of typing. She would later become known for her speed typing, breaking the world record on a manual typewriter in an unofficial test.

Pauline Pauling participating in a filmed athletics demonstration, Los Angeles, 1920s.

She met her first husband, Wallace Stockton, while working as a secretary for the Elks Club in Portland. The couple later moved to Los Angeles, where Pauline worked as the Women’s Athletic Director for the Club. Known as the “Elkettes,” the women’s group, attracting some of Hollywood’s most famous stars, gained much publicity for its numerous activities and events. Pauline and Wallace Stockton divorced in the late-1920s.

On October 6, 1932, Pauline married Thomas Ney. After living in Santa Monica, the two moved to Inglewood, California, where their son, Michael Ney, was born on December 23, 1934.

Pauline Pauling, posing for a Paddies, Inc. promotional photograph, 1940s.

It was around this time that Pauline took notice of a men’s slipper in an issue of Vogue. Using the pattern, Pauline refined the design to create a women’s slipper. Soon after impressing her friends with the prototype, Pauline began making the slippers and selling them from her home. Subsequently, her initially-modest business (Paddies, Inc.) grew rapidly. She began marketing the “Paddy” slipper to upscale department stores like Saks Fifth Avenue, Macy’s, Neiman Marcus, and I. Magnin. Unfortunately, Japanese manufacturers were able to copy her design and thus flooded the market with a cheaper model. Pauline lost her big accounts and, as a result, decided to sell the company.

In 1950, Pauline and Thomas Ney divorced. After returning to Santa Monica, California, Pauline became interested in numismatics, eventually opening her own coin shop in 1960. It was during this time that Pauline became acquainted with Charles “Slim” Dunbar, a coin shop owner from Inglewood. The two were married on August 25, 1973. Sadly, Slim, in ill health, died just 23 months after their wedding.

Pauline Pauling, Paul Emmett, Lucile Pauling, Ava Helen and Linus Pauling, 1976.

Following Slim’s death, Pauline returned to Oregon. It was there that an old friend, Dr. Paul Emmett, re-entered her life. Dr. Emmett, a prominent catalysis scientist, was a longtime friend and colleague of her brother. Emmett was, as Pauline recalls, “underfoot every minute until [she] accepted his proposal.” The two were married on May 22, 1976.

Pauline Pauling with her big brother Linus, 1993.

Pauline, lively even in her later years, cared for Dr. Emmett (who suffered from Parkinson’s disease) until his death in 1985. Following her husband’s passing, Pauline continued to live in the Portland area until her death on October 19, 2003. She was 101 years old.

Check back next week when we’ll discuss the life of the youngest Pauling sibling, Lucile. For more stories of Linus Pauling’s connection to his home state, please see our growing Oregon150 series.

Dr. Paul Emmett, 1900-1985

Dr. Paul Emmett, 1970s

The catalysis chemist Dr. Paul Emmett is one of many distinguished scientists to have attended Oregon State University. He was born in Portland, Oregon on September 22, 1900 to a railroad worker and his wife, and had two sisters. Historian Dr. Burt Davis, who is writing a biography of Emmett’s life, notes that much is unclear about Emmett’s early years. It is known, however, that the family moved a lot due to the demands of working for a railroad. For at least one year, his mother worked as a cook for the railroad and both of his parents lived on one of the train cars.

Dr. Emmett and another of OSU’s hometown science heroes, Dr. Linus Pauling, were classmates in their high school years as well as at Oregon Agricultural College (later to become Oregon State University) and the California Institute of Technology.  [Click here for video of Emmett recounting an early chemical experiment in which he and Pauling combined their duel interests in rail tracks and mischief.] In fact, for a year the two men lived together at Caltech, along with Emmett’s mother, and actually shared a bed, which they used sequentially. (Pauling would go to bed around 3 AM, right about the time that Emmett was usually waking up.) According to Dr. Davis, during his graduate study years at Caltech, Emmett suffered from extreme fatigue and was told by a doctor to take short naps after lunch, a practice that he followed for the remainder of his life.

Linus Pauling and Paul Emmett, 1920.

After completing his graduate studies, Emmett taught chemistry at OAC for one year, before moving in 1926 to a research position at the Department of Agriculture’s Fixed Nitrogen Laboratory. There he sought out a better understanding of the mechanisms by which ammonia could be taken out of the air and turned into a fertilizer for plants. Emmett knew that the Germans had developed just such a mechanism during World War I, but scientists did not entirely understand how and why the process worked.

The result of this investigation was the Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) Method, which remains the second-most cited scientific paper on the process and a technique still in use worldwide. The BET Method provides scientists with the ability to measure a variety of properties of gas molecules on a solid surface: the surface area, the composition of the surface, and the amount of catalyst that is both on the surface and in the interior of the solid. Dr. Emmett’s work on the BET Method earned him a Nobel Prize nomination.

After this success and the widespread construction of ammonia plants around the world, the government lost interest in this line of research and, in 1937, Dr. Emmett moved to the Johns Hopkins University. Emmett stayed in the Johns Hopkins chemistry department until 1943, when he joined the Manhattan Project as a manager – not a researcher – and relocated to Columbia University.

The focus of the Columbia laboratory – which was the first of five labs to work on the atomic bomb – was the separation of uranium isotopes. In particular, the laboratory sought to convert uranium into a corrosive gas, uranium hexafluoride, but found that their methods required a material that would not be corroded by the gas. One of Emmett’s men developed a suitable substance, which eventually became the forerunner to today’s Teflon.

It is also worth noting that, while working on the Manhattan Project, Dr. Emmett frequently had lunch with Percival “Dobie” Keith, the Oak Ridge developer who spurred Emmett’s interest in the Fischer-Tropps process, a method used to create synthetic fuels.

In 1944 Dr. Emmett moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and the Mellon Institute but continued to consult for the Manhattan Project at Oak Ridge, which kept him abreast of developments in nuclear reactions – including the isotopes made by such reactions – for the remainder of his career. At the Mellon Institute, Emmett’s research group further refined the Fischer-Tropps process and also introduced the use of carbon isotopes as a means for studying reaction mechanisms and pathways. The Emmett lab’s carbon isotope studies comprised an important contribution to the study of oxygen mechanisms and, in the process, supplanted a theory that had been in place for over thirty years.

Emmett in the laboratory, 1950s

In 1955 Emmett returned to the John Hopkins University, this time as a chemistry professor and the W.R. Grace Research Professor and Grace Advisory Board Member. (It was also during this time that his first wife, Lola, died after having become very ill at a doctor’s office in Pittsburgh and subsequently lapsing into a coma for eight months.) Emmett stayed at Johns Hopkins until his retirement in 1971, though he continued on as a consultant at W.R. Grace, visiting three or four times a year from the home that he shared with his sister in Oregon.

For the first year of his “retirement,” Emmett taught chemistry at Oregon State University, thus returning full circle to his first professional appointment. From the following year until his death, Dr. Emmett likewise worked as a research professor at Portland State University. In the mid-1970s, Dr. Emmett married Pauline Pauling, the sister of his old friend, Linus Pauling. Dr. Pauling often visited the couple in their home and Pauline, a very lively woman even in her later years, took care of Dr. Emmett until his death.

Pauline and Paul Emmett, 1980s.

Paul Emmett died on April 22, 1985 after a gradual decline brought about by Parkinson’s disease and a brain tumor. Though he spent the final month of his life in a hospital, Emmett steadfastly refused to talk about his health, preferring to discuss fishing and golf instead.

In the estimation of Burt Davis, one “couldn’t find a better person” than Paul Emmett. He is uniformly remembered as a very pleasant and thoughtful man who tended to think the best of everyone.

For more, please visit the Paul Emmett Papers homepage.

Portland, OR: Pauling’s Teenage Years

Lucile, Linus, Belle, and Pauline Pauling, Portland, Oregon, 1916.

“This activist loves Oregon more than he loves life.”
- Tom McCall

Portland, the largest city in Oregon, sits at the convergence of the Willamette and Columbia Rivers on Oregon’s northern border. Known for its microbreweries, environmentalists, and growing nightlife, Portland is nationally recognized as an epicenter of West Coast progressive culture. However, a century ago, the city held a very different position in the national consciousness.

As a part of the great West, early 20th century Portland was largely seen as an untamed and uncivilized part of the continent, full of opportunities and dangers. Aside from an impoverished and rather seedy Japan Town (located in the same area as Portland’s modern Chinatown) and a thriving red light district, the city was an industrial center and little else. Due to its convenient access to Oregon’s primary rivers, which in turn provided a direct line to the Pacific Ocean, Portland became a hub for the state’s shipbuilding and logging sectors. Oregon’s booming timber industry single-handedly supported much of the state’s economy, providing work in mills, producing lumber for shipbuilders and helping stoke the fires of Portland’s fledgling steel industry.

It was in this young industrial center that Linus Pauling spent his teenage years, immersed in a culture of blue-collar labor and near-poverty. He spent his youth in pursuits appropriate to his surroundings; dreaming up get-rich-quick schemes and fantasizing about life as a successful corporate chemist. Pauling was the product of his environment – bright, industrious, and a capitalist to the core.

Though born in Portland, Pauling was not always an enterprising city boy in a smog-choked factory town. In 1905, his family moved to Condon, Oregon, a small watering hole in north central Oregon frequented by cowboys and nomadic Native American tribes, a veritable Wild West to the young Linus. Here, he spent his early years playing on the expansive prairie, climbing trees and wading through creeks. When his father’s drugstore was sold out from underneath the family, however, the Paulings were forced to leave Condon and return to Portland.

Shortly after moving back to the city, Pauling’s father, Herman, died suddenly and unexpectedly. Linus, his two sisters, and his mother, Belle, were left to fend for themselves. Belle sold the drugstore Herman had just opened in Portland and purchased a house with the proceeds. Unfortunately, she had no practical business skill and grossly overpaid for the six bedroom home. In an attempt to keep her family afloat, she took on boarders, though even with the revenue from her tenets, Belle’s income was not enough to support herself and the children. Moreover, the shock of Herman’s death and the added stress of her difficult financial situation pushed Belle into a state of deep depression which was worsened by pernicious anemia, a blood disease which sapped her strength and left her bedridden.

By the time he had turned thirteen, Linus and his sisters had taken over many of the duties of the boarding house. At his mother’s encouragement, he began working outside jobs for extra income. He sold meat in a butcher shop, tended reels in a movie theater, delivered milk in a horse drawn wagon, and transported special delivery packages for the Portland postal service. The money he earned went straight to his mother, who in turn used it to purchase necessities for the family. Unsurprisingly, Pauling disliked having to give up his hard-earned wages and, in the years to come, disagreements over finances would prove to be a continuing source of friction between Linus and his mother.

Linus’ chief respite from the grim realities of his family life was his intellect. At the age of thirteen, Pauling was first introduced to chemistry by his best friend, Lloyd Jeffress. After watching Lloyd demonstrate a few small chemical reactions with a homemade chemistry set, his own course was set. Linus  had previously built a small room in the basement of his mother’s boardinghouse to house his mineral collection – this space quickly became his laboratory. Soon he was collecting chemicals and supplies with which to conduct his own “experiments.”

Indeed, academic pursuits often served as Pauling’s escape from his difficult adolescence. At the age of sixteen, he chose to formally pursue an academic career and leave Portland altogether. He moved to Corvallis, Oregon in the fall of 1917 where he enrolled at Oregon Agricultural College. There, he embarked on a course that would eventually earn him two Nobel prizes and worldwide acclaim. It should be remembered, however, that Pauling’s life in Portland shaped much of who he was as a scientist and an activist. His difficult youth instilled in him a work ethic and sense of determination that characterized his career and led to some of the most important scientific developments of the 20th century.

For more information about Linus Pauling and his life in Oregon, visit the Linus Pauling Online portal or check out the other posts in our Oregon 150 series.

The Darlings: Maternal Ancestors of Linus Pauling

William Allen Darling III, William Allen Darling Jr. and Linus Wilson Darling, ca. 1890s.

Before her wedding to Herman Pauling on May 27, 1900, Linus Pauling’s mother, Belle, was known as Lucy Isabelle Darling.  The Darling family history is a rough and tumble one, indicative of the pioneer environment in which Linus Pauling was raised.

Earliest Ancestors

Brothers Dennis and John Darling, the family’s earliest known ancestors, settled in Braintree, Massachusetts, just south of Boston, sometime around 1660.  Records are slight for at least one or two generations, but it is known that John R. Darling, born in 1750, established himself as a farmer in the mid-Hudson Valley region of New York state.  We also know that John R. Darling was a Tory loyalist who, in response to the outbreak of revolution in the American colonies, moved his family to the Bay Quinte region of Ontario, Canada, where he remained until his death at age 98.

The Darlings resided in eastern Canada for some time.  John R. Darling’s son William Darling, born 1800, married and raised eight children in the Bay Quinte region.  One of William’s sons, William Allen Darling (1826-1900) would become Linus Pauling’s great-grandfather.

Great-Grandfather William Allen Darling

William Allen Darling’s biography is the first in which we find documentation of what might be described as “Wild West” behavior.  Having married in 1850 and, in ten years, fathered six children, William Allen Darling left both eastern Canada and his family behind in 1863, bound for Chicago, apparently for purposes of fighting in the American Civil War on the side of the Union.

During this time he cut off communication with his family, who eventually presumed him to be dead.  Four years later he married again – a bigamous marriage, technically – and settled on the western shores of Lake Huron in Tawas City, Michigan.  [He and his second oldest child, William Allen III, would later relocate to the Pacific Northwest] Around this same period, Darling’s first wife died and all six of her children were moved into foster homes.

Grandfather Linus Wilson Darling

One of those six children, Linus Wilson Darling (1855-1910), ran away from his foster parents in New Jersey, worked for a spell as a mule-driver on the Erie Canal and, at the age of fifteen, found his way to Chicago, where he both worked and lodged in a bakery. (he slept in a large bakery barrel)

A year later Linus Wilson Darling left Chicago and, for two years, roamed westward.  He eventually settled in western Oregon, near the state capitol of Salem, and found work as a school teacher.  It is here that he met his future wife, Alcy Delilah Neal, who was one of his students – she was nineteen at the time of their marriage, he was twenty-three.

The newlyweds stayed near Salem for two years, before finally moving to Lonerock, on the east side of the state, where Linus opened a drugstore and Alcy gave birth to four daughters.  The second, Lucy Isabelle, born April 12, 1881, would become Linus Pauling’s mother.

Linus Wilson Darling and Estella Darling, the third of his four daughters, early 1900s.

Four years later the Darlings moved to Condon, where Linus opened a General Store and where Belle would later meet Herman Pauling – a traveling pharmacist, her future husband and the father of Linus, Pauline and Lucile Pauling.

It is worth noting that The Oregon Historical Society includes among its holdings a thoroughly entertaining diary kept by Linus Wilson Darling during his time in Lonerock and Condon.  In it Darling notes, among other events, his first experience of catching a fish by shooting it with a gun…

More information on the Darling family can be found in subseries 5 of the Pauling Biographical materials and a previous blog post on Linus Pauling’s paternal lineage is available here.

The Paternal Ancestry of Linus Pauling

The Pauling family tree. Certain annotations courtesy of Linda Pauling Kamb.

Linus Pauling’s earliest known ancestor was Andreas Pauling, born ca. 1630.  Records indicate that Andreas’ grandson, Johann Christoph Pauling, married and started a family in Preusslitz, Prussia.  There the Paulings remained for at least two generations, until Johann Andreas Pauling (perhaps the grandson of Johann Christoph) move to Golbitz, in what is now western Germany.

In 1842 a son of Johann Andreas’, Christoph Friedrich (born 1808), immigrated to the United States with his wife and two daughters.  A son, Frederick, was born during the family’s passage across the Atlantic, and two additional sons, William Frederick and Charles Henry (whom everyone called “Carl”), were born in the U. S.  The Paulings settled as farmers in Concordia, Missouri, though Christoph Friedrich and all three of his sons would eventually fight on behalf of the Union during the American Civil War.

In 1868 Carl Pauling married Adelheit Blanken and the couple started a family of their own.  Carl and Adelheit’s fourth child, Herman Henry William (born 1876), is Linus Pauling’s father.

In 1877 Carl moved his family from Missouri to California and then, five years later, to Oswego, Oregon, where he worked in the iron wholesale business.  Herman Pauling was raised in Oswego and apprenticed with a local druggist.  As part of his work, Herman would often travel to communities well-outside of the Portland area, for purposes of selling pharmaceuticals in rural areas.  On a trip to Condon, Oregon, some 150 miles east of Portland, Herman met Lucile Isabelle Darling, one of Linus Wilson Darling’s (a local shopkeeper) five daughters.  Lucy Isabelle, known to everyone as “Belle,” is Linus Pauling’s mother. [The Darling family lineage is discussed in this blog post]

After a brief long-distance courtship, Herman and Belle married on May 27, 1900.  Though Herman would die just ten years later — suddenly, at age 34, of a perforated ulcer and peritonitis — he and Belle would have three children:  Linus Carl, born February 28, 1901; Pauline Darling, born August 7, 1902; and Frances Lucile, born January 1, 1904.

Lucile, Linus, Belle and Pauline Pauling, Portland, Oregon, 1916.

Page 1 of a letter sent by Linus Pauling to Ava Helen Pauling, August 16, 1942.

Health and longevity were not necessarily in Linus, Pauline and Lucile’s DNA; their father’s life was quite short and Belle’s not much longer — she died at age 45 of pernicious anemia.  Nonetheless, all three lived well into old age:  Lucile died at age 88 on January 18, 1992; Linus died at age 93 on August 19, 1994; and Pauline, a colorful woman who married four times (the last to Linus’s boyhood friend and Caltech first-year roommate, catalysis chemist Paul Emmett), lived to the age of 101, passing on October 19, 2003.

Linus Pauling’s papers contain ample documentation of his family geneology.  While much of this was compiled by other family members or the various biographers who have written on his life, Pauling himself pretty clearly maintained a long-standing interest in his roots.  Page one of a letter sent by Linus to Ava Helen in August 1942 (reproduced below) is an early example of the geneological work that might fairly have been termed a minor hobby — or, at least, intellectual interest — of Pauling’s throughout his long and illustrious life.