Helen Crouse (1914–2006): Imprinting and Chromosome Behavior

Abstract

HELEN Virginia Crouse died May 25, 2006, at age 91 in her home in Hayesville, North Carolina. She was a cytogeneticist par excellence who in the course of her studies coined the term “imprinting.” She also used the expression “controlling element,” which was employed in a different context by Barbara McClintock, her Ph.D. advisor. Helen Crouse was born September 12, 1914, to Charles C. and Margaret Ross Crouse. Her father was a train and trolley conductor; her mother was educated through the third grade. Helen grew up in Owings Mills, Maryland, together with her older sister, Marie Garrish. In 1935 she obtained her B.A. degree from Goucher College where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and her M.A. degree from Smith College a year later. While working on her Master's degree, Helen had obtained a fellowship for a brief stay at Cornell where she met Marcus Rhoades, who was raising corn there. After receiving her M.A., for the next 3 years she worked in the Department of Embryology at the Carnegie Institution of Washington in the laboratory of Charles W. Metz whom she had first met while a senior at Goucher College. In the Metz lab, Helen earned the grand sum of $1200/year! Metz was on the faculty at Johns Hopkins University, engaged in research on the lower dipteran fly, Sciara coprophila. In Metz's lab, Helen was introduced to this model organism and began her studies (Crouse and Smith-Stocking 1938; Crouse 1939; Metz and Crouse 1939), continuing to unravel the secrets of Sciara for the rest of her research career.