BOTANICAL MUSEUM LEAFLETS 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
CambBripGre, Massacuvusetts, December 31, 1953 Voi. 16, No. 7 
FREDERICK OLIVER THOMPSON, 1883-195: 
BY 
Enso S. BARGHOORN 
Tue death of Frederick Oliver Thompson on the third 
of January of this vear, brought to an untimely end the 
life and activities of a man who was justly recognized as 
one of the country’s leading amateur collectors of pre- 
historic plant life. Certainly in few scientific fields has a 
nonprotessional worker been so well known to specialists 
as was Fred Thompson to American paleobotanists. For 
the careful and accurate documentation of his collections 
and for the vast amount of material donated to American 
universities, his record as an amateur paleontologist has 
few parallels, particularly when it is recognized that his 
paleontologic interests were confined to only the last two 
decades of his lite. 
Fred Thompson (he always preferred to be called 
“Fred”” by his scientific friends, regardless of their age) 
was born in Des Moines, lowa, December 29, 1883, the 
first son of H. DeVere Thompson and Alice Cooper 
Thompson, who were among the early leaders in the 
development of Towa’s capitol. After preparation for 
college at St. Paul’s School in Concord, N.H., he was 
graduated trom Harvard College in the Class of 1907. 
He returned to Cambridge the following autumn for a 
year’s study in the Harvard Law School and then went 
back to Des Moines to enter the varied business activities 
eree 
