The UC Davis community lost three long-serving members recently, with the deaths of Robert A. Matthews, senior lecturer emeritus in the Department of Geology, and Ernest M. Gifford and C. Ralph Stocking, both professors emeritus of plant biology. Matthews died June 10 at the age of 79, of prostate cancer; Gifford died June 14 from complications of Alzheimer's disease, at the age of 86; Stocking died May 25 following a long illness. He was 93.

Robert A. Matthews

Matthews, a senior lecturer with security of employment, established the environmental geology program at UC Davis. He was closely involved with students throughout his academic career. In 2000, one of the five courts at The Colleges at LaRue, a student residential complex, was named in his honor.

He was born in Augusta, Ga. in 1926. At the age of 16, he tried to enlist in the U.S. Army Air Corps. Rejected by white recruiters in the South, he traveled to New York to enlist and trained at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, becoming one of the Tuskegee Airmen, the nation's first black military airmen. He was active in Tuskegee Airmen Inc., a nonprofit foundation that works to preserve the history of African Americans who served in the Air Force during World War II. In 1991, he helped to organize an exhibition about the Tuskegee Airmen and other black aviators at the UC Davis Shields Library.

After the war, Matthews attended the University of Southern California and then UC Berkeley, receiving his bachelor's degree in geology in 1953. He worked for the California Division of Mines and Geology (now the California Geological Survey) from 1956 until 1972, when he joined UC Davis as a lecturer in geology and associate dean of environmental studies.

Matthews had begun studying for his doctorate in geology in 1968, but suspended his studies when he was appointed to UC Davis. After retiring in 1996, he returned to his studies and finally received his doctorate.

At UC Davis, Matthews established -- and for some time was the sole faculty member of -- the environmental geology program. At Lake Tahoe, he originated the idea of using of a cinder cone for sewage treatment, a process that was used for several years in the area. In recent years, he studied the hydrogeology of the East African rift, and he developed a method to measure the role that fog drip plays in recharging groundwater in Kenya and in Northern California. At the national level, he served as deputy hazard information coordinator for the U.S. Geological Survey from 1977 to 1979.

Matthews is survived by his wife, Vel; four children, Karen of Oakland, David of Woodland, Susan Matthews Henderson of Atlanta, Ga., and Robin of Davis; brothers Edgar Jr. and Thomas; sisters Shelley, Teresa, Ann and Sadie; and by 13 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

In lieu of flowers, memorial donations may be sent to Yolo Hospice, P.O. Box 1014, Davis, CA, 95616, or the American Cancer Society, (800) 227-2345 (please specify donations for prostate cancer research).

Ernest M. Gifford

Gifford was born in 1920 and studied at UC Berkeley, receiving his bachelor's degree in botany in 1942. He served as an infantry officer in Europe during World War II, reaching the rank of major and being awarded the Bronze Star. He continued to serve in the U.S. Army Reserve until 1973, when he retired with the rank of colonel.

After demobilization in 1946, he returned to Berkeley, and was awarded a Ph.D. in 1949. He joined UC Davis -- then the Davis campus of the UC College of Agriculture -- as an associate in botany in the same year. He served as chair of the Department of Botany from 1963 to 1968, and again from 1973 to 1978.

Gifford's research interests were in plant structures and development, especially how the meristem in shoot tips gives rise to leaves, flowers and stems. He authored more than 100 publications over 50 years, including a textbook, "Morphology and Evolution of Vascular Plants," and entries in the Encyclopedia Britannica. He pioneered the use of radioactive labels to detect DNA synthesis in shoots.

In 1959, Gifford and Stocking demonstrated for the first time the presence of DNA in chloroplasts, the structures within plant cells that carry out photosynthesis. This discovery showed that at some point in the distant past, chloroplasts were derived from independent organisms that became incorporated into plants.

In 1966, Gifford received both a Guggenheim and a Fulbright fellowship, using the latter to support a year's sabbatical in France. He returned to France in 1974 as a NATO senior fellow. Professionally, he served as president of the Botanical Society of America in 1982, and as editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Botany. In 1986, he was awarded the Academic Senate's Distinguished Teaching Award.

He is survived by his wife, Jean; their daughter, Jeanette Lewis and son-in-law Jonathan Lewis of Davis; and a grandson, Aaron Lewis, New York City.

Gifford had requested that no memorial services be held. The family encourages friends and colleagues to remember him by visiting the cycad garden in front of Storer Hall on the UC Davis campus. The garden was planted and dedicated to him in September 2005. Donations in memoriam may be made to the UC Davis Foundation, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, designating the Arboretum Endowment or Botanical Conservatory Endowment funds.

C. Ralph Stocking

Born in 1913, Stocking received his bachelor's degree in plant nutrition in 1937, a master's degree (1939) and a doctorate in plant physiology in 1943, all from UC Berkeley.

He joined the Davis campus in 1940 as an associate in botany. From 1943 to 1945 he carried out wartime work as a control and research chemist with the Puccinelli Packing Company, Turlock, Calif., returning to UC Davis in 1945 as an associate in the Experiment Station, then assistant professor of botany in 1946.

Stocking served as acting chair of the departments of Botany and Agricultural Botany, 1966-67, and chair of the Department of Botany in 1967, 1968-70 and 1971-73. He retired in 1980.

Honors included National Science Foundation scholarships in 1963 and 1970, which he used to spend a year each at Imperial College, University of London and King's College, University of London, England.

Stocking's research interests were in water relations of plants, photosynthesis and chloroplasts, including the landmark finding of DNA in chloroplasts in a study conducted with Gifford.

He was the co-author of several editions of a classic botany textbook that has been in print under different titles since 1924, and authored exclusively by UC Davis faculty for more than 70 years. Stocking, starting in 1959, contributed to nine editions, including the most recent edition, now called "Plant Biology," published in 2004. After years working on a manual typewriter, he purchased his first computer at his colleagues' urging to work on the 1998 edition.

In 2002, he established the Elsie J. Stocking Fellowship in Plant Physiology in honor of his late wife, Elsie. The fellowship is awarded to graduate students specializing in plant physiology in the College of Biological Sciences.

Stocking had moved to a seaside home in Trinidad, Calif., in 1997 to be closer to family members. He is survived by two daughters, Kathleen Cropper of Trinidad, Calif., and Margery Stocking of Varnasi, India.

The family requests that memorial donations be made to hospice programs, or to the Elsie J. Stocking Fellowship fund. Checks should be made payable to UC Regents, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, designating the fund.