Norman Thompson

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Biography

Descendant of PGM migrant PGM Hannah Pontus.

Norman Ray Thompson was born November 11, 1912 at home near Hesperia, Michigan, United States.^[1] He quickly moved up from one grade to the next in the one room school he attended so that at age 11 he was attending high school. The high school was too far from home so the family rented a room for him I n town where he had an electric burner to cook his own food.

Norman received his B.S. in Dairy Science form Michigan State University, Lansing, Michigan, U.S.A., his Masters from University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, U.S.A, and his PhD in genetics from Michigan State.

As an undergraduate, he attended Michigan state during the Great Depression. While there, Norman Thompson lived and worked in the dairy barn. His mother Jessie Thompson said that once when she visited he had one loaf of bread for food for that week (supposedly plenty of milk to go with it). When not in college he worked for the State of Michigan collecting milk samples from farms. During that time he became friends with Lilian "Paula" Sandburg and her goats. Years later, he visited the Sandburgs in North Carolina. It took Norman 8 years to complete college because of financial limitations and the Great Depression.

His difficulty influenced his later life as he helped students financially, hosted international students, rented living space to grad students at a very low cost, baked pies for and welcomed students for every Sunday dinner (once there were 15), every year donated funds to his and his childrens' colleges, paid for his children's college, and left money for his grandchildren's college.

He married Irene McCall on 2 February 1943 in Florence, South Carolina, United States of America.

He joined the Navy 25 Aug 1942, trained as a Communications Officer at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A. and served translating intercepted German messages while on the U.S.S. Pollux off Brazil^[2] At that time one of his letters to his wife Irene contained a coffee bean - it had not been censored. The profile picture was taken in Brazil. At the same time he studied Portuguese. He was transferred to the U.S.S. Indianapolis and was on board when it was hit by a Kamikaze during the battle of Okinawa. When the U.S.S. Indianapolis returned to San Francisco for repairs he was transferred to San Francisco where he eventually worked mustering out Navy folk until November 21, 1945. He served in and retired from the Reserves. He is buried in his Navy Uniform.

In November 1945 he returned to Florence, South Carolina where his wife Irene had been living with her family. Even though his brother-in-law Allsobrook McCall, Jr. offered him his dairy business, Norman chose to take a job teaching in the Rudyard, Michigan high school. So he took his wife Irene and child from South Carolina to the Upper Peninsula winters! He moved up first and secured a home outside of town. Irene was accompanied by her sister Nel as she and the child Irene drove up to the Upper Peninsula. The folks in the Presbyterian Church insisted that they move from their country home into a home in town and Irene McCall Thompson even gave the sermon one Sunday.^[3] Years later she told her daughter Ellenore that the potato peeler was a gift from the ladies in the church who were surprised that she had never seen one. Irene returned to South Carolina for the birth of their second child.^[4]

They moved to Madison where Norman Thompson began graduate worK at the university. He later studied statistics in one of the nation's first statistics programs started by Miss Gertrude M. Cox at North Carolina State University (where his third child was born). He later recalled her excellent teaching, that she used real examples (like pineapples in Hawaii) in the classroom. He completed his doctorate at Michigan State where his fourth child was born.

Dr. Thompson was a professor of Dairy Science at Virginia Tech before and after completing his PhD. In 1970 he began working as a Systems Analyst at the NAMRU 4 medical research center at Great Lakes Naval Base in Illinois. From 1974 until his retirement he worked as a Statistician in the Coast Guard. After retirement from the Coast Guard, Dr. Thompson worked as a programmer/analyst for CDC and CIS with assignments at the Pentagon and Goddard Space Center. He was a fellow with the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Sigma Xi, the honorary science society. He was very active with Toastmasters, ACM.org, the Buick Club, and served as a Deacon and Elder in Blacksburg Presbyterian Church, Libertyville Presbyterian Church, and Fairlington Presbyterian Church. He especially enjoyed being a tenor in the Libertyville and Fairlington Presbyterian Churches’ choirs and travelled to Europe with the Fairlington choir.

He played the French horn in high school and the harmonica on occasions, pictured at his grandson David Williamson's first birthday.

Dr. Thompson had a keen memory and perfect pitch. He said he could feel an A in his chest.

Dr. Thompson was an early user of computers. He learned about them during the war when he was at Harvard and later took his daughter Ellenore to hear Admiral Grace Mary Hopper, one of the first programmers of the Harvard Mark I computer. In the 1950s at Virginia Tech he set up a database of dairy cattle in western Virginia which irked the head of the Dairy Science Department who backpedaled years later remarking that Dr. Thompson was "ahead of his time."

He died April 19, 1991 in Alexandria, Virginia.

He is buried in the Mount Hope Cemetery in Florence South Carolina. ^[5]

Descendant of PGM migrant PGM Hannah Pontus.

Sources

1. ↑ 1920 Census, photo attached
2. ↑ U.S. World War II Navy Muster Rolls, 1938-1949, U.S.S. Pollux, February 29, 1943.
3. ↑ Remembrances of Nel Fraser
4. ↑ Remembrances of Ellenore Thompson Pinkham
5. ↑ https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/94983359

Notes of Ellenore Thompson, daughter.