Memorial Minute
Michael J. Tremelling
Michael Tremelling died last June at the age of forty—two. For a decade
and a half his life had hung by a thread and that thread was getting thinner
and thinner. He knew that, but he used what time he had to do his work, to
raise his children and to show more concern for others than for himself.
when he lost his last battle, his friends, colleagues and students lost the
most remarkable man they are ever likely to know.
Michael Tremelling was born on October 14, 1945, in Rigby, Idaho. In his
undergraduate years, at the Idaho State University, he was the junior
member of joint faculty—student research that resulted in his first two
publications. This early experience shaped his later professional life as a
chemist and as a teacher of chemistry: he was never happier than when he
worked with his Vassar students in the laboratory. Mike did his graduate
work at Yale, where he earned Master's and Doctor's degrees in physical
organic chemistry and then went on to Cal Tech for a year of post—doctoral
research.
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it was during that year that both his kidneys failed and were replaced by
a kidney given him by one of his sisters, Jeanne. when Mike applied for an
appointment at Vassar early in 1974, he sent along his curriculum vitae on
which the entry "Health:" read “Good; kidney transplant May 1973". That
laconic assessment reflected his determination more than his optimism. He
knew, as we did, that the health of a transplant patient is never simply
"good". The drugs administered to prevent the body from rejecting the alien
organ inevitably weaken the entire immune system. Even a trivial infection
like the common cold constitutes a threat to life. in addition, these drugs
cause progressive deterioration of the bone structure. Both of Mike's hips
had to be replaced with steel and plastic not once but twice, and during his
last stay in the hospital, he faced a third hip replacement, a drug-resistant
infection, and a second kidney transplant. That proved to be more than even
his tenacity could overcome.
Mike had a fierce and dogged will to live, not for the pleasures life
afforded him, for those were few, but for his work which he loved, and for
his two young sons, Christopher and Jonathan, whom he loved more and for
whose custody he had fought a long and wearying battle.
Most of his energy went into his work, and he was good at it.
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He was a demanding teacher, and a generous one. He was always ready
to help students who were honorably struggling with chemistry, and even
more so to guide those who wanted to explore it beyond the context of the
introductory course. But he had no patience with students who did not try to
do their best. For someone who as a matter of course worked to the limit of
his capacity under trying circumstances, - who painfully dragged himself to
class on crutches and taught with an overhead projector from his chair when
he could no longer stand on his feet, - it was incomprehensible and
infuriating that there were hale young people who could not be bothered to
put their best effort into their own future.
At the center of Mike's professional life was his research.
Characteristically, he was only interested in difficult problems. He carried
out work in three distinct areas of physical organic chemistry: solid-state
reactions at high temperatures, steric requirements of physiologically
active molecules, especially morphine analogues, and the mechanisms and
kinetics of free-radical reactions. His substantial and highly original
contributions to these fields have been published in more than a dozen
papers, several of them in journals that accept only work of unusual and
fundamental importance, like Tetrahedron Letters and the rapid communications
section of the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
His work was supported by grants from the Petroleum Research Fund, the
Research Corporation, and the National Science Foundation. He worked and
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published jointly with two colleagues in the department and, above all, with
his students. To a deeply engaged scientist, teaching and research are
indivisible: the most effective teaching and the most exciting learning are
done when a student and a teacher strive together to trace the lines of order
and of beauty in Nature's tapestry. The students who had the good fortune to
work with Mike in the laboratory knew and loved him best, both as a
scientist and as a man, and their lives have been profoundly changed by
knowing him.
it is easier to talk of Michael Tremellings work than to convey what
kind of man he was. Few could live in such adversity and in virtually
constant pain without falling into despondency, self-pity and an acceptance
of defeat. That was not Mike's way. He staved off despair by setting aside
what he could not change and putting his energy into what he could. If he
was discouraged by what he called the rollercoaster ride of small
improvements followed by large setbacks, he did not let it show. His health
was not a subject of conversation he saw fit to open. As he lay immobilized
on his bed for most of last winter and throughout spring, he would talk to
his visitors about everything else but that, - about books he read, about
college affairs, about national politics. His comments were often funny and
always incisive and cuttingly to the point. He did not have the mind, — or the
time, — to beat about the bush. Only when asked would he speak of his
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condition and then in such a matter-of-fact way that it seemed he was
looking not at the ruins of his life but at a biochemical phenomenon he
followed with detached interest. Then he would change the subject. The
remarkable thing is our clear sense that he avoided speaking of his pain and
of his prospects not to protect himself but to spare our feelings.
There is no lack of large and noble words to describe Michael Tremelling.
There is his genuine brilliance as a scientist. There is his unflagging
courage that can only be called heroic. There is the enormous dignity with
which he faced multiplying disaster. But at the core of all of these there is
that rare and unfashionable quality called goodness. Wordsworth reminds us
that the "best portion of a good man's life" are "his little, nameless,
unremembered acts of kindness and of love“. Yes, but not unremembered. All
who knew Mike during his short life will remember him for however long we
may live.
September 1988
Robert D. Brown, Department of Classics
Edith C. Stout, Department of Chemistry
Curt W. Beck, Department of Chemistry
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