Former ASHS member Effin Thomas Graham, 87, of Oak Ridge, TN, died 20 June at the Methodist Medical Center of Oak Ridge after a long illness. He was born in 1923 in Uniontown, PA, the son of William Jacob and Rena McClelland Graham.
Dr. Graham was a veteran of World War II, serving with the U.S. Army in the New York 177th Battalion in the Pacific, and was a recipient of three Bronze Stars.
After the war, he received his BS, MS, and PhD degrees in horticulture from Pennsylvania State University. After seven years as professor at Texas A&M, he became professor of horticulture at the University of Tennessee, where his specialty was ornamental horticulture. He worked on long-term management of dogwood anthracnose and was involved in development of an anthracnose disease-resistant dogwood cultivar. He retired in 1990.
While a member of ASHS, Dr. Graham was involved in the Ornamentals/Landscape and Turf, Developmental Physiology, and Ornamental Plant Breeding working groups.
His passions were his family, his work, and hiking with his dogs.
In addition to his parents, Dr. Graham was preceded in death by his brother, William Graham; and granddaughter Rachel Pendray. He is survived by his wife of 57 years, Vivian Halley Graham; son, Owen Graham, and wife, Danine, of Knoxville; daughter, Eleanor Meunier, and husband, Russell, of Oak Ridge; and three grandchildren, Kenneth and Wendy Graham of Oak Ridge and Charles Pendray of Houston, TX.
Memorials may be made to the Oak Ridge Animal Shelter, 395 Belgrade Road, Oak Ridge, TN 37830-7289.