Memories of Dr. Eyring
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Surrogate Father
My Father died when I was young, and it left a void where Gospel teaching and experience was to be imparted by a male figure. Part of this void was filled by the life and writings of Brother Eyring.
In my life Brother Eyring exists in the company of Neal Maxwell, Gordon Hinckley, Boyd Packer, Spencer Kimball, N. Eldon Tanner, and Hugh B. Brown, as men who have participated in teaching me the Gospel and living a Christ-like life.
Thank you so much for being willing to share this great man with the rest of us! He will forever be a great contributor to the development of my spirituality, as well as continually helping shape and reshape the lens through which I view Religion and the Gospel.
Much Love,
Sione E. Pauni
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Faulty Exhaust, Firm Friendship
When I returned home from the Service in the spring of 1946, my father had moved his dental practice from Park City to Salt Lake. He and my mother had purchased a home at 2059 East 900 South just off of Foothill Boulevard. The Eyring family lived about three or four blocks west of my parents on 900 South in the original Monument Park Ward. My mother told me of Dr. Eyring’s fame as a scientist and I was anxious to meet the great man. I recall on a number of occasions walking by the Eyring brick home on 900 South and seeing Hal Eyring, a tall, slender, dark-headed teenage boy playing basketball in their driveway. I think he played on the varsity basketball team for East High School.
I was enrolled in a pre-med pre-dental program at the University of Utah and used the bus system to get to and from school. I caught the bus on 900 South near our home to 1300 East, and transferred to another bus to get to the university. Early one morning while waiting for the bus to take me to my usual eight o’clock class, Dr. Eyring drove by in his rather beat-up old car and offered me a ride to school. I jumped in and this began a very pleasant, and for me, fortuitous relationship. For the next two years, from 1946-1948 when I was married, Dr. Eyring picked me up at that bus stop many times. We always drove through the south gates of Fort Douglass up to the campus.
Several things about those rides with this famous scientist stand out in my mind. First, he was a delightful, friendly, unpretentious man—I liked him almost immediately. He had a quick wit and an engaging sense of humor, and he always spoke with great candor. Second, there was a leak in the exhaust system of his car and carbon monoxide seeped up through the floor boards, just about asphyxiating me by the time we reached the university. It didn’t seem to bother Dr. Eyring so I never mentioned it to him. The incongruity of a great scientist driving an old car with a faulty exhaust system always made me chuckle.
My soon-to-be wife’s brother, Dr. Truman Woodruff, was a Rhodes Scholar studying for his PhD at Cal Tech in Pasadena, California at the time. In the summer of 1946 Truman came to Salt Lake City specifically to take an advanced Chemistry course from Dr. Eyring. Truman confirmed to all of us the fame and international reputation of Professor Eyring. In our early morning discussions on the way to the University, Professor Eyring remembered Truman as a very capable student. I, of course, hoped my relationship with Truman would enhance my standing with Dr. Eyring.
When I graduated from the University of Utah in 1949, I applied to one dental school, The University of the Pacific in San Francisco, California. I needed two letters of recommendation and who better to write a letter in my behalf that the Dean of the Graduate School at the University of Utah and world-renowned scientist—my friend, Dr. Eyring. I feel certain his letter had much to do with my acceptance into the school.
Six years elapsed before I heard from Dr. Eyring again. I had graduated from dental school and was enrolled in the graduate orthodontic program at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. It was a surprise and pleasure to receive a note in the mail from Dr. Eyring inviting me to a lecture he was presenting at the University. In the note, he included the date, time and location of the building on the UW campus. I think he had obtained my address in Seattle from my mother. I was impressed that he had been following my progress in professional schools through my mother and flattered that he would take the time to invite me to his lecture. As I recall I had difficulty finding the amphitheater where he was lecturing so I arrived a few minutes after he had been introduced and started his lecture. Since there were over one hundred men and women in attendance, he didn’t know I was sitting there among the egghead graduate Chemistry students and professors. Although I had studied Chemistry up through Biochemistry—Chemistry was my favorite subject—I didn’t understand much of what he said and I told him so after the admirers and well-wishers had left. I shook his hand, thanked him for inviting me, and told him I didn’t understand most of his lecture. He replied in his typical self-deprecating manner, “Blaine, don’t worry, there are many things I don’t understand either.”
This brief meeting at the University of Washington brought to a close my relationship with one of the most interesting and likable men I have ever known.
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Ph.D. Qualifying Exam
As background I wish to say that Henry Eyring influenced me more than any other person outside of my family. I grew up in the Monument Park Ward with the Eyrings. Henry Eyring was my home teacher, my Sunday School Teacher and the one speaker I was always excited about listening to. Ted Eyring was my Physical Chemistry Professor and wrote a recommendation for me to Stanford University. Hal Eyring was my teachers quorum adviser and later my bishop at Stanford, and Harden was a year older and an associate. I might add that I have been a professor of Materials Science for 27 years at Rutgers University in New Jersey, not far from Princeton, and one of my students won the prestigeous Wigner fellowship named after Henry Eyring’s associate at Princeton. I know many stories about Henry Eyring but I will tell just one.
Story: My Ph.D oral qualifying exam at Stanford had five sections. For each we would appear in an office with two professors who would quiz us on a subject. For kinetics I appeared before Professors Shyne and Pound. The question I was asked was to derive the Eyring kinetics equation. Before I started Professor Shyne commented, “That should be easy for Cannon. He comes from Utah.” I blurted out, “Yes, I know Henry Eyring well. He was my Sunday School teacher.” In response Professor Pound commented, “yes, I remember meeting Henry Eyring at a meeting of the American Chemical Society. A bunch of us Jewish fellows were standing around talking. Henry came up to us and started kidding us that to a Mormon we were all gentiles.” I often think of this incident and how Henry Eyring was not afraid of bringing up his religion among colleagues. I am also impressed with the story about his telling Einstein about the beliefs of our church.
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Memories of Heaven
Sometime during my second year at the University of Alberta (1948-49) I had an experience I have not forgotten. Actually I was told not to forget it. I was a young student and Dr. Sandean was my Chemistry Professor. He was dearly loved by all of his students partly because of his high academic standards and partly because of his unassuming folksy manner.
I remember one morning Dr. Sandean came to our Chemistry class in his familiar tattered lab coat and shoes with a scientific journal of some sort in his hand. He held it up and pointed to a picture on the cover of the journal. He said, “Do you know who this is?” I want you to take a good look at the picture of this man and never forget him. He is a very important man; his name is Henry D. Eyring. He is a Mormon from Utah. Dr. Eyring is a great chemist and he was my teacher when I was back in Heaven (we all knew that was Princeton). I want you to remember who he is because you will hear more about this great man in the in the future. And I did!
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My grandfather was a friend of Henry Eyring
My grandfather Martin Mortensen was on the Faculty of Gila Academy, and Henry Eyring was one of his students. My grandfather later taught Science Education at what became Arizona State University. He and Henry Eyring kept in touch over the years. Once, while visiting Salt Lake, my grandfather and uncle went to the University to visit Brother Eyring. At that time he had a secretary whose job it was to keep out unwelcome visitors. As soon as Brother Eyring saw who it was he invited my grandafather in and they reminensced about old times in Arizona. My aunt and uncle have memories of visiting the Edward Eyring house in Pima. My cousin was able to read the interview with Henry Eyring published in Dialgoue in 1974 and it brought back many memories for him.
My grandfather, like Henry Eyring was a man of science who also had great faith. They both believed that the scriptures told us why the world was created, while science could teach us how it was created and how long it took the Lord to do it.
I hope that one thing this biography will do is to make more people aware of the B.H Roberts, James E. Talmadge, John A. Widstoe and Henry Eyring tradition of seeking to integrate the scientific and spiritual perspective. I am proud to be an insignifcant contemporary part of that tradition. Like Henry J. Eyring , the author of this wonderful biography, I think it is in our DNA.
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The Fleet-footed Professor
[Written in 1970]
Last night I almost caused a traffic pileup while driving home from the office. Along the highway I saw a shirt-sleeved friend, briefcase in hand, walking briskly toward his home, over a mile away. My first impulse was to slam on the brakes and offer him a ride.
Then I remembered that he likes to get out and walk like a schoolboy to and from his office. He is also known to enjoy competing in foot races with his college students. At times he seems thoroughly to love being a boy again, though his hair is silver and his reputation as an eminent chemist circles the globe. His name is Henry Eyring.
Dr. Eyring has conquered many frontiers in chemistry. I have seen him take a complex, even frightening, subject in his field and in a lecture make it readily understandable to us laymen. More than that, his talks on science and religion can be as refreshingly exciting and elevating as a high ride on a ski lift. Perhaps a reason is that he can put aside his cares and lose himself in boyhood bliss.
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The Larson Stories
In the 1950 school year I made an appointment with Dean Eyring to ask his approval for an adjustment of credits, to let some better grades outside of my minor be counted instead of ‘C’ grades I had received in Biochemistry (a “forced” minor). When I told him of my greater interest in dyes and physics, Dr. Eyring questioned my motives for preferring these more commercially applicable fields. He asked, “Where would you sell your information?”
In 1964, while I was head of the Chemistry Department at Westminster College, I often attended University of Utah Chemistry seminars. One presentation, by Edward Eyring (Dr. Eyring’s son and a member of the faculty) was on Ted’s specialty of “ultra-fast reactions.” As he was describing some recent success, I heard his father call out: “Have you published on this?” When Ted answered, “Not yet,” Henry almost seemed to scold him for the delay.
When Henry went to attend a meeting in Stockholm in early summer, 1953, he also found the LDS chapel to a sacrament meeting. He didn’t introduce himself (as a General Sunday School Board member) and took a seat at the rear of the chapel. Mission President Clarence Johnson was away, and since the local leaders did not know Henry, he wasn’t recognized. A Utah-based businessman was also present at that meeting, and his wife became upset with the branch leader’s “oversight”. Later that same summer I met this offended wife in the lounge of a small hotel in London, where she told me of the “affront” to Brother Eyring. She wouldn’t listen to an explanation of his unassuming style.
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