programs, approaches to scientific
problems, how learning might be
made more meaningful and effec-
tive, and how she could help others
to help themselves.
  I suppose it could be said that
Elizabeth was generous to everyone
except herself. It sometimes seemed
that way. I can hear her yet, in her
Transactions office just across the
lobby from my own, patiently
reviewing a dissertation with a
Ph.D. student or a manuscript with
a prospective journal con-
tributor-giving, ever giving, of her
time and of her vast resources of
knowledge. Stop by her farm and
she would insist on breaking away
from pressing paper work or gar-
dening chores. There was time for
lemonade under the shade of a
maple on a summer's day, time for
a chat by the fireplace when the
winter winds swept about her 19th
century home. Always, there was a
time to go afield, to search out the
den of the vixen fox and her kits, to
find a spring and its treasure of
watercress, to see where the
elderberry shouldered in along the
fence row.
  The house stands empty now, a
gift, with the farm land, to the
Wisconsin Alumni Research Foun-
dation to help assure the availabili-
ty of funds to support University
research projects. The Academy,
too, had been remembered through
her generosity, but most important
of all was the gift of herself.
Because she lived, there are those of
us who live differently than before
we knew her, or try to.
  These thoughts were on my
mind on the Sunday before
Memorial Day, 1978, when Presi-
dent Emeritus E. B. Fred and I
drove out to Forest Hill with our
own remembrance. I had brought
along some purple lilacs and several
stalks of iris. Dr. Fred, whose 91st
birthday was missed by Dr. McCoy
only because of her illness, had
with him some white lilacs and a
clutch of yellow roses gathered at
his University home. "Yellow roses
of Texas," he explained, adding,
"And these white lilacs... .you
know, they were never fuller, never
more beautiful in any year."



  Professor Elizabeth McCoy died
Friday, March 24, 1978 while
enroute to a hospital from her farm
home on the Syene Road south of
Madison. She had been ill for a
short time with an undiagnosed
respiratory tract afflication, but
had preferred to remain at home
until her condition suddenly
worsened, and caused her to agree
to move to a hospital.
  She was known throughout the
world as a truly great
microbiologist. It is doubtful that
anyone can match Elizabeth
McCoy's breadth and depth of
knowledge about microorganisms
and their activities. Among the!
principal recognitions she had
received were election to: Honorary
Membership in the American
Society for Microbiology;
Honorary Membership and
Honorary President for Life in the
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences,
Arts and Letters; Honorary
Membership in Sigma Delta Ep-
silon. She had been honored alsc by
being granted the Pasteur Award of
the Society of Illinois
Microbiologists, and the
Distinguished Service Award of the
Wisconsin Alumni Association.
During the winter of 1978 she had
been awarded the honorary degree
of Doctor of Science by the Univer-
sity of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and
had accepted. The degree was con-
ferred posthumously during the



University of Wisconsin-
Milwaukee's spring commence-
ment exercises on May 21, 1978.
  At the time of her death she was
working actively, despite her
retired status, on microbiology of
lakes and streams, and on the ac-
tions of microorganisms in the
treatment of sewage. She had, in
addition, continued her work as
Editor of the Transactions of the
Wisconsin Academy of Sciences,
Arts and Letters, had brought to
publication the current volume 65
(1977), and had issued a call for
papers for volume 66. With
Emeritus President E. B. Fred and
Eleanore Qimoen she had been the
author of a small book, entitled
"Seeing" The University of
Wisconsin-Madison Today, and
published by the 1978 Board of
Regents of the University of
Wisconsin System.
  During earlier years she had
published many articles in scien-
tific journals, had been a co-author,
with E. B. Fred and I. L. Baldwin, of
Root Nodule Bacteria and
Leguminous Plants, University of
Wisconsin Studies in Science,
Number 5, 343 pp. (1932) and
Supplement, 40 pp. (1939), Univer-
sity of Wisconsin Press, Madison.
She had, in addition, worked many
years as an editor of sections of
Biological Abstracts that dealt with
microbiology of foods and with in-
dustrial microbiology.



June 1978/Wisconsin Academy Review/5



MEMORIAL RESOLUTION

        OF THE FACULTY

     OF THE UNIVERSITY

OF WISCONSIN-MADISON

      ON THE DEATH OF

      ELIZABETH McCOY