Friends of Dean Bessey Join in Appreciations

Friends of Dean Bessey Join in Appreciations

Charles Bessey

A Daily Nebraskan article that talks about how Charles E. Bessey's death was greatly mourned by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

The Daily Nebraskan

UNL Archives and Special Collections

Raymond Pool

UNL Archives and Special Collections

UNL Archives and Special Collections

Newspaper Article

Friends of Dean Bessey Join in Appreciations

Chancellor Avery Speaks on Behalf of University

Verses from Classrooms

In simple tribute to the man, whom years of association and friendship have brought them to honor and love, persons from all parts of the land are sending to the saddened home of the late Dr. Charles E. Bessey messages of sincere condolence.

Especially touched by the passing of so revered a one of their number, the members of the faculty of the University have been quick to acknowledge their loss. The sorrow that the whole University feels has elicited, among the others, those true appreciations of the life and service of a noble man.

Through his long years of activity among us as a botanist, teacher, and man, Doctor Bessey's valued and devoted services to the University of Nebraska have become known to all the world. His death is not only a misfortune to the University organization, in the upbuilding of which the effort of the greater part of his life was spent, but also a direct personal loss to students, alumni and faculty people among whom he numbered his friends by the hundreds. With Doctor Bessey's family, the University feels the grief of this irreplaceable loss, and extends to the bereaved relatives its most sincere and heartfelt sympathy.

Professor Bessey's passing falls with almost crushing force upon those of us who are left as members of the staff of the department which he founded. After years of constant associations with him, we can never become accustomed to the absence of his round and cheery voice in the corridor and classroom. We will miss his firm rap upon our door and we will never again bear his pleasant "Come in," when we rap at his door. But most of all we will miss his warm handclasp and the constant inspiration of his glowing and infectious enthusiasm and fatherly encouragement.

The summation of the philosophy of life is found, according to Professor Bessey's own expression in the word LOVE. How truly he lived up to this philosophy only the faculty and those who have been his long-time associates in department work can fully know. No one has ever heard him speak an unkind word about anyone whom he knew. He even sought to temper criticism whenever possible. His wholesaled devotion to his family and to his chosen field of labor are perhaps the most impelling characteristics of his striking personality.

His success in retaining his youthful, optimistic spirit and his power of impressing the desirability of so doing upon others was the great underlying force which made his influence so widely felt among his "boys and girls". This impressive nature was never more clearly evident than at times of Botanical Seminar initiations, when new members were taken into this unique organization, the institution of which was inspired by his majestic personal touch. At a particular point in the initiation it was the traditional custom for spirit lamps to be lighted and, after a pause, to listen to the "message of the Socius." This message was always delivered by Professor Bessey in a very impressive manner. Many of the admonitions embodied in these remarks controls the very essence of his noble philosophy. Fortunately we have been on many of these characteristic messages, from some of which i quote his own words as he addressed the students of botany upon such occasions:

"This is an enlistment for a life service. It will be a pleasant service. It will be a pleasant life. but it must be for life, and for the love of Botany, and for that alone. And not for any of its enlistments."

"Hear again! My children! I am young, and I once was very old. I was once as old as you are now. And I once felt, as you do now, that I had reached maturity of mind."

"Youth is not always the accompaniment of fewness of years. Many a man in his "teens" or "twenties" is far older in his mental habits than the man of gray hair and bald head."

"Do you realize, my children, that the man "whose mind is made up" can no longer advance scientifically? His permanent tissue cannot change; his mind is no longer in a meristem state; he can no longer grow mentally!"

"Let me admonish you, my children, to be young in spirit! Keep your minds meristamatic, avoid early permanent tissue."

Can you wonder that a man who thoroughly believed and taught and LIVED such philosophy should leave so tremendous an imprint upon the thousands who have been in his classes and upon the hundreds who have been associated with him in many other relations of life's complexities?"

To have met him was to honor him; to have been taught by him was a priceless privilege; to have been intimately associated with him and to have walked with him into the fields and gardens and to have received from him an insight into the great realm of which he was master was to have been led very close to the Great Omnipotent who who causes the snow flakes to fall, O, so softly, when our beloved friend passes beyond the great divide where nothing but flower land and love will greet him.

Raymond J. Pool
Professor of Botany