University of Massachusetts Amherst - Index Yearbook (Amherst, MA)

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if he lool{s rather for prompt and practical action, the reason stands revealed. In 1897, Mr. Sears married his college classmate, Ruth Sto es, who moved forward to the next world in 1924. Twin daughters, horn in 1907, constitute his remaining family. In Amherst, Mr. Sears is My own as an active and useful citizen of the cxymm,unity, a leader in his church, in the ' Masonic fra ternity and in other useful movem,ents. At the State College, he is recognized as an outstanding man in his professional field, hut he hears an equally high reputation for helpful activities in many different directions. Iium.anly speal ng — very humanly — he is one of the landma,r s of the campus. — Fran A. Waugjh. UHCLE FREDDIE One great trouhle amxm,g the fishermen of T orth 7S[eiv ound- land and Labrador used to he the alarming amount of illness disahility due to food deficiency diseases. We surgeons recognized early that only half the tasl{ hefore us was the treatment of patients who came to our hospitals sujfering from, heriAjeri, scurvy, rickets, and tuherculosis — that ' melancholy hrood. The real challenge was to love our neighbors in the more difficult hut more common ' sense way of preventing their ever having to con tract these ailments. C insequently, when, m xny years ago. Professor Sears offered to come T orth each sum,m,er as a volunteer worker in the Grenfell Association, and to see what our ground and clinuxte were capa

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DEDICATION Fred Coleman Sears was horn May 11, 1866, in Lexington, Mass., of a sea faring family. While he was yet quite young, his parents tooX him. to their new home on the plains of Kansas, a territory at that time populated nuxinly by coyotes, jacX rabbits, buffalo, and Indians. Here he spent his boyhood, on the far American frontier, with all its romantic experiences. Soon after graduating from the Kansas State Agricultural College in 1892, he went to ? iova Scotia where for ten years he was engaged in teaching and extension worl{, mainly in pomological lines. This residence of a decade under the British flag also made its deep impression on him.. In 1907, he transferred his activities to Mas- sachusetts, serving here since then as Professor of Pomology at M.S.C. During all of this period he has ept in notably close con tact with the fruit growers of J ew Eng}xind, by whom he is held in High esteem. Several years ago he fell in with Sir Wilfred Grenfell, noted doctor and missionary to Labrador, and for seven successive sum,mers he has gone to Labrador or its neighborhood, assisting in the wor of the Grenfell Mission. Chec ing over this brief chronology, it is easy to see that, begins ning with a sea going background, teaching for ten years in a foreign land, serving as college professor for more than a quarter of a century in T ew England, and joining in a highly eifective missionary enterprise in Labrador, Fred Sears has led an active and varied life. He has been constantly in touch with rugged realities and major enterprises. If he is sometimes impatient with pious generalities, with theoretical palaver, with mere tal , and

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hie of producing in the way of vegetables and small fruits, and also to teach our fishermen how to cultivate little gardens of their own, we hailed him as just the colleague we needed. Since then. Professor Sears has been of great service to our cause. One of the early discoverers of Labrador reported it as a lande fitte only for wild beastes, with not a carteload of earth on it. Yet today, thanks largely to the impetus and teaching of Professor Sears, all along the coast little gardens are ' ' flourish ing liXe the green bay tree. Horticulture, however, is only one of the talents of this beloved physician to the plants. He has the true flair for photography; and our north country has furnished him fields fertile not only for potatoes, but for photography as well. His camera has been quite as useful to our wor as his spade. TTirougH the medium, of his beautiful pictures, many friends on both sides of the Atlantic have been given a true idea of the country and the people, and not a few have come to visit us as a result. On the Labrador, a person who has attained the dignity of gray hair, and who is beloved and respected, is promoted to the title of Uncle. Since Professor Sears answers to all of those qualifications, he is universally nown amongst us as Uncle Freddie. As one of our volunteers has phrased it: ' Oh, would some power the giftie gi ' e us. To see ourselves as iihers see us, ' iluoth Robert Burns. But on the Coast We have a system that we boast will do the tricl{ — Just hold it steady — Be photographed by Uncle Freddie. So it is with the greatest pleasure that we, from, the humblest fisherman to the Chairman of our Board of Directors, add our sincere testimony of gratitude and affection to Professor Sears — of Amherst and Labrador. — Sir Wilfred Gr en fell.