Donald Storrs King Family Papers, 1889-2004 | Oberlin College Archives

Donald Storrs King

Donald Storrs King was born in Oberlin, Ohio on June 19, 1889, the son of Julia Coates King (c. 1879) and Henry Churchill King (c. 1879) the sixth president of Oberlin College (1902-1927). Three brothers, Harold Lee King (c. 1905), Philip Coates King (c. 1910) and Edgar Weld King (c. 1916) and also two cousins, Kathryn J. Coates (c. 1922) and Louise B. Coates (c. 1929) also attended Oberlin College. After graduating from Oberlin College in 1912, he studied medicine for a year (1914-15) at Western Reserve Medical School and for the following three years at the Harvard Medical School where he earned his MD degree in 1918. Immediately after graduation, he entered the Army Medical Corps and served as a captain with the American Expeditionary Force in France (1918-19). (His father, Henry C. King, was in Paris in 1918 giving service to the Y.M.C.A., and, subsequently, participated in the inter-allied commission sent to the Middle East to investigate the political and economic issues associated with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.) After interning at Massachusetts General Hospital (1920-21), Dr. King entered private practice in Boston and also became a lecturer at the Harvard Medical School, a position he held until 1953. From 1931-1942, he also headed the thoracic (chest) clinic at Massachusetts General Hospital.

During World War II (1941-46), Dr. King returned to active duty as a lieutenant colonel with the hospital's Army affiliate, the Sixth General Hospital, which was located in Casablanca, Morocco, and later Italy. When Prime Minister Winston Churchill suffered an attack of pneumonia in North Africa, Dr. King assisted Lord Moran, the Prime Minister's personal physician, in arranging treatment. Promoted to colonel in 1944, Dr. King was named chief medical consultant to the surgeon of the Army's Mediterranean Theater of Operations. For his work, he was awarded the Legion of Merit Medal, the Army's fourth highest citation. He returned to his practice and teaching at Harvard University after the war but remained on call for government service. He visited the Far East twice as a consultant to the Surgeon General of the United States. In 1951, he went to Germany for the Public Health Service to advise on standards of physical examinations for immigrants to the United States. Until 1953, he also served as a consultant to the Veterans' Administration and the Middlesex County Tuberculosis Sanatorium in Massachusetts.

In 1953, after retiring from his Boston practice and Harvard University teaching of 32 years, Dr. King settled in Hanover, New Hampshire where he taught at the Dartmouth Medical School for three years. In addition to his teaching responsibilities, he was a chest consultant at the Hitchcock Clinic in Hanover. In 1953-54, Dr. King served as president of the American Trudeau Society (later the American Thoracic Society), the medical section of the National Tuberculosis Association. Dartmouth College awarded him an honorary AM in 1954. In 1957, illness forced him to retire.

Dr. King authored numerous articles, including "The Clinical Bacteriologic and Pathologic Findings in a Case of Influenzal Meningitis"; "The Twort-D'Herelle Phenomenon (Bacteriophagy), Its Possible Relation to Therapeutics"; "Bronchial Asthma"; "The Relation of the School Physician to the Family Doctor"; "A Statistical Study Based on Two Years' Personal Observation -- Postoperative Pulmonary Complications." The dates and place of publication of these articles has not been determined.

On October 7, 1916, Donald Storrs King married Helen Farnsworth Gulick (Smith, 1916); they had two children: William Gulick King (b. March 2, 1929) and Helen (Peggy) Gulick King Weston (b. February 13, 1931). Dr. King died in Hanover, New Hampshire on August 30, 1963,

Sources Consulted

"Dr. Donald King, Teacher, 74. Dies," The New York Times. August 31, 1963, n.p.

Oberlin College Biographical Record, September 1963.

Obituary for Donald Storrs King. Dartmouth College News Service, Hanover, New Hampshire, August 31, 1963.

"Spread of TB Laid To a New Source," The New York Times, May 28, 1952, n.p.

Edgar Weld King

Edgar Weld King, born 1893 in Berlin, Germany, graduated from Oberlin College in 1916. He was one of three sons of President Henry Churchill King and Julia Coates King. He received a master’s degree at Columbia University in 1923, a diploma from the Library School of New York, and a Doctor of Humane Letters (honorary degree) from Miami University in 1957. He served as a sergeant in the Army during World War I from 1917 to 1919, receiving two citations. (His father, Henry C. King, was in Paris in 1918 giving service to the Y.M.C.A., and, subsequently, participated in the inter-allied commission sent to the Middle East to investigate the political and economic issues associated with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.)

Edgar King was the Director of Libraries at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio from 1922 until his retirement in 1956. He guided the growth of Miami’s library from 55,000 volumes to 305,000 volumes. He personally collected and presented to the library its valuable Ohio Valley Historical Collection. He was an expert in children’s literature, and also donated to Miami University’s library his private collection of more than 6,000 children’s books and magazines printed from the seventeenth century to the 1930s. The Miami University undergraduate library is named in his honor. He and his wife Faith French were married in 1922 and had a daughter, Sarah Weld, in 1926. Edgar Weld King passed away in 1969.

Sources

“50^th Reunion of the Class of 1916,” directory, Oberlin College, 1966. Donald Storrs

King and Family Papers, Oberlin College Archives.

“King Library,” Miami University, accessed April 7, 2022.

Miami University Libraries Guide to Special Collections, pamphlet, Miami University, 1977. Donald Storrs King and Family Papers, Oberlin College Archives.

Ruth Coates Roush

Ruth Weld Coates (Roush) (1909-1979) was the daughter of Benjamin Edmond Coates (brother of Julia Coates, wife of Oberlin College President Henry Churchill King) and Harriet Elizabeth Bell Coates. Ruth graduated from Oberlin College in 1934. She married Galen James Roush, a widower with two children, on May 15, 1936. They had two children of their own, Thomas and George. The Roushs were multimillionaires owing to Galen Roush’s success as a co-founder of Roadway Express. Ruth Roush was among Oberlin College’s most generous benefactors. In 1965 she began to specify that her annual gifts be used to purchase contemporary art for the Allen Memorial Art Museum. By her death in 1979, 113 works had been purchased through her support. The collection includes works important to the history of contemporary art, by Ad Reinhardt, Jim Dine, Larry Poons, Robert Morris, Sol LeWitt, Eve Hesse, and Mary Miss. She supported the museum’s program of commissioned works, including Claes Oldenburg’s 3-Way Plug (1970), installed on the museum’s grounds. Her gifts to the museum amounting to $1.7 million, made possible the construction of the museum’s 1976 wing designed by Venturi and Rauch, which included a new Contemporary art gallery.

Source

Alumni and Former Student Records, Oberlin College Archives.

            Ruth Weld Coates Roush

            Julia Coates King

Charles Barker King and Ernestine Evans King

Charles Barker King (1915-1994) was the son of Harold Lee (Oberlin College Class of 1905 and Professor of History) and Hazel Barker King (curator at the Allen Memorial Art Museum). He was the grandson of Oberlin College President Henry Churchill King and Julia Coates King. He graduated from Oberlin College in 1937 with honors. He received a PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1940. He married Ernestine Evans  on July 19, 1941. Together they had four children. Charles had a successful career as a research chemist, primarily at Corning Glass Works in Corning, New York.

Source

Alumni and Former Student records, Oberlin College Archives.

Violet Petty

Violet Petty (birthdate unknown) was an African American housekeeper for President Henry Churchill King and Julia Coates King in their home in Oberlin. She had a sister, Mary Tully Smith, with three children: Evelyn Smith Gilmore, Elliott Smith and Willkie Smith. Violet’s last years were spent at Geneva’s Home for the Aged in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Her niece Evelyn took care of her affairs and kept in touch with the King family regarding Violet, who died in March 1967.

Source

Donald Storrs King Family Papers, Oberlin College Archives.