Joseph Schieser Nelson

Abstract

A S Joe Nelson tells it, he shouldn’t be here. Because of medical problems during the birth of his brother, Bill, Joe’s mother had been told not to have any more children. To the great benefit of ichthyology and ASIH, she did not follow that advice and went ahead with the pregnancy, and Joseph Schieser Nelson safely entered the world by cesarean section on 12 April 1937, in San Francisco, California. Joe’s parents were Walter Innes Nelson (1888–1974) and Mary Elizabeth Schieser (1902–1983), both born in northern California. His father’s ancestors came from Germany and moved to the United States in the late 19 century. His grandfather’s name was originally Nielsen (his place of birth, Schleswig, was part of Denmark at the time, and he considered himself Danish), but he anglicized it to Nelson when he moved to America. The family attained some prominence in public life. One of his relatives served in the California State Assembly, where he authored the bill establishing Humboldt State College. Another served as the Commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service during the Reagan Administration. On his mother’s side, he can trace his American ancestry back to the 17 century, when Colonel William Ball and Hanna Atherold arrived in Virginia from England. Joe’s maternal ancestors later moved west through Kentucky and Missouri before eventually arriving in California. Joe’s two older brothers were Walter Innes Nelson (1924–1978), a mining geologist who served in Europe in the Canadian infantry in WW II, and William Cecil Nelson (1927–1974), an architect who at the close of WW II served in the Pacific in the U.S. Navy on an aircraft carrier. Although he was born in California, Joe did not stay there very long. Shortly after his birth, his father, a mining engineer, received a job offer with a mining company in Canada, and in December, 1937 the family moved from Angels Camp, CA, where he was superintendant with a mining company, to Copper Mountain, British Columbia, east of Vancouver. It was a small town with a bit of a Wild West atmosphere, and a good place for a boy to grow up. In the winter, Joe enjoyed ice skating and skiing. In the summer, there were many outdoor activities to take part in. It was here that Joe first became acquainted with fishes. As he recalls, the family often piled into their 1940 Mercury with a row boat on top and went trolling on local lakes. His favorite was Missezula Lake. He vividly recalls one occasion when his father or a brother caught a large unwanted fish (i.e., not a game fish), which he later determined to be a Largescale Sucker (Catostomus macrocheilus), a species he would get to know much better later. His family probably would have referred to it as a trash fish or coarse fish, but to Joe there was no such thing. In his view, all fishes were important and interesting. He was turned on to biology by his high school biology teacher, Mrs. McLuckie. In high school, in Vancouver, he started keeping aquarium fishes. Joe became very interested in these, especially the development of zebrafish (Danio rerio) eggs, which were deposited on the glass, and which he could see developing. He was a bit ahead of his time here, as today the zebrafish has become a popular experimental animal. Oddly enough, although he spent much time on the water, Joe never learned to swim well until much later. Joe spent all of his formative years in British Columbia, first at Copper Mountain, later at nearby Allenby, and finally Vancouver, where he attended high school. Outside of school, he worked part time at a local supermarket during the year. He spent one summer block-cutting and stocking peat moss on Lulu Island, and another as a geophysical technician at a prospective copper mine near Kamloops, of which his father was president. After graduating from high school in 1956, he enrolled at the nearby University of British Columbia (UBC), where his brothers had gone. He knew by that time that he wanted to study zoology, but he was not sure which branch. He was interested in fishes but also in embryology and intertidal