University of California: In Memoriam, May 1977
Charles Douglas Woodhouse, Geological Sciences: Santa Barbara
| 1888-1975 | |
| Professor of Geology, Emeritus |
When Charles Douglas Woodhouse passed away after a brief illness on August 5, 1975, the sharp loss was not only felt by his family but by the entire Department of Geological Sciences. Although he had retired twenty years earlier, there were very few students who were not aware of his interest in them and in the well-being of the department. Even though he was eighty-seven years old, he visited the department one or two times each week, bringing mineral specimens and stories of mines and miners. Everyone was left with a warm joy for having visited, if only briefly, with him.
Doug Woodhouse began teaching geology and mineralogy informally at Santa Barbara State College in 1938, serving as lecturer without salary. The following year he joined the staff of the department of science on a formal basis. Prior to coming to Santa Barbara, Woodhouse had been mine manager of the Champion Sillimanite, Inc., at their mine in the White Mountains of Mono County, California.
Professor Woodhouse was born on May 1, 1888 in Burlington, Vermont, into a family of bankers. He graduated from Williams College in 1910 with a B.A. degree and from Columbia Law School in 1915 with an LL.B. degree. During World War I he served with the Signal Corps of the U.S. Army. He resumed his law education with an M.A. degree in jurisprudence from the University of California, Berkeley in 1925. By this time, however, his interests in geology, minerals, and mining developed to the point where he decided to make a major change in his professional life. He spent 1925-26 studying mineralogy at the University of Paris. While in Paris he married Muriel Jeffery, his lifelong companion and support.
When he returned to California, he managed the mining operation in the White Mountains, where Champion Sillimanite, Inc. was obtaining andalusite, the raw material for the spark-plug ceramic. During these ten years he maintained close but informal relationships with the geology department at UC, Berkeley and Stanford University. He also spent part of his time visiting nearly every operating mine in the western United States, amassing a large collection of minerals and ores.
After moving to Santa Barbara and joining the staff at Santa Barbara State College, he served the campus and community continuously until his death. In 1948, when a second geologist joined the staff, the enthusiasm in geology was very great--entirely due to the vigor of Doug Woodhouse. From 1942 to 1952 he served in various additional capacities, such as assistant dean and dean of men, and coordinator of veterans affairs for the Santa Barbara campus. Even with these duties, Doug Woodhouse taught full schedule in geology and mineralogy. The major in geology was authorized in 1950, but its installation was postponed to 1954, coincident with the move to the Goleta seashore campus.
Doug Woodhouse gave his time to the Santa Barbara community as well. During World War II he taught meterology at the U.S. Marine base, now the UCSB campus, and was on the advisory board for the Santa Barbara Red Cross. Almost from the time he arrived in Santa Barbara, he supported the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History and had served as trustee for decades.
The special honor to a mineralogist of having his contributions recognized by having a new mineral named after him was bestowed on Woodhouse in 1937. Woodhouseite, an aluminum sulfate-phosphate, was found with other unusual aluminum minerals during the mineral operation in the White Mountains. This material, described by Dwight Lemon, then a graduate student at Stanford University, is only one example of minerals and locality information that Doug Woodhouse shared with other mineralogists, especially those just getting started in the profession. Of these findings, he kept only the satisfaction of helping someone solve a mineralogic problem.
Following his retirement in 1955, Doug Woodhouse remained intensely interested in geologic education at UCSB. He endowed a fund in 1958, the income from which constitutes an award given each year to the graduating senior of highest excellence. Moreover, he has donated his entire collection of more than 10,000 specimens of minerals and ore samples to the Department of Geological Sciences, to enhance teaching and research in mineralogy. These are the tangible legacies left to the department and campus, but to those who knew him there will remain memories of a generous man, teaching students, who lived life in the hills and the natural world of minerals.
Courtesy of University Archives, The Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-6000; http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/info
http://content.cdlib.org/view?docId=hb1199n68c&brand=oac4
Title: 1977, University of California: In Memoriam
By: University of California (System) Academic Senate, Author
Date: May 1977
Contributing Institution: University Archives, The Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720-6000; http://bancroft.berkeley.edu/info
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Academic Senate-Berkeley Division, University of California, 320 Stephens Hall, Berkeley, CA 94720-5842