Alice Faber Tryon (1920-2009) (Obituary‪)‬

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Alice Faber Tryon became a member of the American Fern Society in 1946 and in 1978 was elected to honorary membership, a special category of membership for those who have made outstanding contributions to the study of ferns. An eminent student of ferns and their spore morphology, she was born Alice Elizabeth Faber in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on August 2, 1920 (according to her sister Jane, she celebrated her birthday on August 1, although her birth certificate reads August 2). She was the second of three children of Arthur H. and Laura Bindrich Faber, and all four of her grandparents had roots in Germany. Known in her family as an ambitious and hardworking woman, Alice was Aunt Fern to her nieces and nephews. Alice graduated from the Milwaukee State Teacher's College, now the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, in 1941. After several years teaching in public schools, she went to the University of Wisconsin at Madison where she met Rolla M. Tryon Jr. and married him on March 16, 1945. This initiated a happy and enduring domestic partnership and a research synergism whose productivity has nourished pteridologists throughout the world. Also in 1945, she completed her master's thesis at Wisconsin, began her doctoral studies there under Rolla's direction, and moved with him to the University of Minnesota where Rolla served briefly as an Assistant Professor. The couple moved to the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis in 1947 where Alice completed her doctoral degree at Washington University in 1952.