Pearl Louella Kendrick (1890 - 1980)

Born 24 Aug 1890 in Wheaton, DuPage County, Illinois, United States

Ancestors

Died 8 Oct 1980 at age 90 in Grand Rapids, Michigan

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Biography

Pearl Kendrick is Notable.

Pearl Kendrick was born August 24, 1890 in Wheaton, Illinois, daughter of Milton Kendrick, an engineer. When she was just three years old, she developed a case of whooping cough. She was lucky enough to survive the illness and went on to have a happy childhood. She received her B.S. from Syracuse University in 1914, and graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 1934. Because of her earlier episode with Whooping Cough, she was inspired to research whooping cough (pertussis) which was prevalent in the deaths of children at that time.

Working at the Western Michigan Branch Laboratory of the Michigan Department of Health, she met Grace C. Eldering and Loney Gordon in 1940. They headed the vaccine project through program development, testing, and developed the first Whooping Cough vaccine which resulted in the eventual inoculation of children with the pertussis vaccine.

Pearl Kendrick retired from the Michigan Department of Public Health in 1951. The Bentley Historical Library houses Pearl’s papers, which document the work of the pertussis trials through professional correspondence, lab notebooks, and publications. Her personal correspondence and diaries offer glimpses of her life outside the lab. Her family wrote to her often (including a young nephew interested in the fact that she was “chasing bugs all the time” in her laboratory). She was an avid birdwatcher who recorded descriptions of the birds and flowers she saw while exploring the Nichols Arboretum. And she kept a home with Grace Eldering from the early days of the pertussis trials until her death in 1980.

Pearl never married. She died on October 8, 1980, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. She is buried in the Sherburne West Hill Cemetery, Sherburne, Chenango County, New York, USA Plot: Lot 452, E 1/2, Grave 10, next to her parents.

Sources

• "United States Census, 1900," database with images, FamilySearch .(https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MS6Y-X39 : accessed 13 August 2015), Pearl L Kendrick in household of Milton Kendrick, Cortland city Ward 1, 4, Cortland, New York, United States; citing sheet 13A, family 324, NARA microfilm publication T623 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.); FHL microfilm 1,241,020.

• "United States Census, 1940," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:K4GM-BNS : accessed 12 August 2015), Pearl Kendrick, Walker Township, Kent, Michigan, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 41-45, sheet 1B, family 17, NARA digital publication T627 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2012), roll 1776.

• Find A Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 25 June 2019), memorial page for Dr Pearl Luella Kendrick (24 Aug 1890–9 Sep 1980), Find A Grave Memorial no. 90284916, citing Sherburne West Hill Cemetery, Sherburne, Chenango County, New York, USA ; Maintained by Diane Branham (contributor 47959773) .

• Michigan Women's Hall of Fame Inducted: 1983 Era: HistoricalArea(s) of Achievement: Public Health. Michigan Women’s Historical Center & Hall of Fame • 213 W. Malcolm X Street, Lansing, Michigan 48933 Found on the Wayback Machine (https://web.archive.org/web/20151225012238/http://www.michiganwomenshalloffame.org/Inductee_PDFs/Kendrick_Pearl.pdf)

• Photo Courtesy of the Grand Rapids Public Library

• The Bentley Historical Library (https://bentley.umich.edu/features/the-trailblazer/)

See Also:

• Wikipedia: Pearl_Kendrick
• Wikidata: Item Q7158113, en:Wikipedia