JAMES JACOB WOLFE 



1875-1920 

 Plate 8 



The North Carolina Academy of Science has lost in Dr. Wolfe 

 one of its most active, influential and useful members, and desires 

 to put on record a sincere and affectionate appraisal of his character, 

 his personality, his work and his service to the Academy, to Trinity 

 College and to the State. 



He was born on September 14, 1875, at Sandy Run, Calhoun 

 County, South Carolina, the son of John Archie Wolfe and Frederica 

 A. (Geiger) Wolfe, was educated at Wofford College, and pursued 

 graduate training at University of Chicago, and at Harvard, receiving 

 the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the latter University in 1904. 

 He was at once elected Professor of Biology in Trinity College, and 

 filled this position with marked ability and distinction as teacher, 

 investigator and administrator until his death, after only a short 

 illness, on the morning of the College Commencement Day, June 9, 

 1920. 



On June 28, 1904, he was married to Cornelia Wilhelmina Lehr- 

 mann, of Montclair, N. J., who survives him. There are no children. 



Dr. E. W. Gudger, for many years head of the Biological Depart- 

 ment at the State College for Women, and now of the American 

 Museum of Natural History, New York, writes as follows: 



"I knew Professor Wolfe for some twelve years, and for ten years 

 of that time intimately. He was an unusual man in every way. 

 Some years after we became friends, he came down to the U. S. 

 Fisheries laboratory at Beaufort to take up the study of certain 

 marine algae, and it was my good fortune to introduce him to the 

 life of a marine biological laboratory. From that time on our friend- 

 ship grew and our intimacy was terminated only by his all too early 

 death. 



"In his scientific work, Professor Wolfe was careful, painstaking, 

 and thorough, testing every observation and phenomenon to the far- 

 thest limit before committing his observations and conclusions to 

 writing. In his work on the alternation of generations in one of 

 the marine algae, his observations and results were at variance with 

 those of previous workers. Here, instead of rushing into print with 

 something startling, he patiently reviewed his work year after year 

 until he was absolutely sure of his results. At the time of his death 

 Professor Wolfe was engaged, with the assistance of Mr. Bert Cun- 



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