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WEEK of February 14, 2005
@BFS! archives

From our past:
The Pangborn Family

by Susan Price ’86

In 1919, right after World War I, two siblings enrolled at Brooklyn Friends School. Both graduated at the age of 15 and both were valedictorians of their respective classes in the 1920s. They were Mary Candace Pangborn and her younger brother, Edgar William Pangborn, the children of Harry Levi Pangborn, an editor of Webster’s Dictionary for the G. & C. Merriam Company and the writer Georgia Wood Pangborn, best known for her ghost stories published in early 20th century magazines.

Mary was born in 1907 and died in 2003 in Woodstock, NY. She graduated BFS in 1922, receiving the mathematics prize that year, and attended Smith College, her mother’s alma mater. It’s hard to imagine that many young women chose to become chemists during that era but Mary Pangborn did. In 1931 she received her doctorate in chemistry from Yale at the age of 24 and completed her post-doctoral studies in the same department.

Her brother Edgar was born in 1909 and died in 1976 in Woodstock. His academic career was less concise than that of his scientist sister. As a student, he was our newspaper editor and even wrote the school alma mater. After graduating in 1924 he attended Harvard for a time and later tried the New England Conservatory of Music, but never received a degree. At age 21, his first novel was published, the 1930 mystery A-100 under the pen name Bruce Harrison. He continued writing mystery stories for magazines throughout the 1930s and 1940s, then enlisted in the Medical Corps during World War II, serving in the Pacific.

The Pangborn Award, named for Mary Pangborn, is given by the Wadsworth Center of the New York State Department of Health every other year. The Pangborn Award recognizes Wadsworth scientists whose scientific advances have had or are anticipated to have a broad public health impact. Image courtesy of the Wadsworth Center, New York State Department of Health.

Meanwhile, Mary had joined the New York State Department of Health’s Division of Laboratories and Research in 1933, now known as The Wadsworth Center, where she made a breakthrough discovery that changed millions of lives worldwide. The Wadsworth Center later wrote of her discovery of cardiolipin, the antigen used in diagnostic testing and treatment for syphilis, in their nomination of Mary to the Inventors Hall of Fame: “Without this compound’s discovery by Dr. Mary C. Pangborn, a standardized syphilis test would have been beyond reach, and accurate diagnosis and posttreatment impossible.” In 1948, when an estimated 40 million people worldwide were infected with this disease, she patented the process of recovering and refining cardiolipin. To ensure quality control worldwide, Mary Pangborn gave the patent to the World Health Organization, relinquishing her rights and forgoing any personal gain.

At the end of World War II, Edgar again took up his pen, moving from mysteries to the science fiction genre. His first published sci-fi story, “Angel’s Egg,” appeared in 1951 and is now considered a classic. His works emphasized character and moral issues and were often situated in a post-apocalyptic world. His novel A Mirror for Observers received the International Fantasy Award in 1955, and he was twice nominated for Hugo Awards for his novel Davy and his short story “Longtooth.” At the 61st World Science Fiction Convention in 2003, he posthumously received the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award which is given to science fiction writers whose work deserves renewed attention. Three of his novels have recently been reissued by Old Earth Books.

Mary continued working for the New York State Department of Health until her retirement in 1970. She began writing after her retirement, following her brother’s footsteps and trying her hand at science fiction. A number of her short stories were published in the 1980s. Toward the end of his life, Edgar collaborated with his older sister on a number of stories and one unpublished novel.

In 1996, Dr. Pangborn wrote a letter to BFS that touched on their brief years here. She explained that she and her brother had been educated at home until 1919, studying from textbooks, asking their parents for answers when needed, and reading any books they “could reach down from the shelves.” They arrived at BFS, “academically ready to work with children two or three years older” but without experience socializing with other children and families. “We were calmly and kindly stirred into the mix of older children, encouraged to go on working at our own levels, gradually even learning to make friends.”

She wrote of her teachers: “There was a group of wonderful teachers at the School in those years; I have warm and lasting memories of them. Mr. Cochran, particularly – he was then teaching math and science, and was responsible for getting me started in chemistry, which became my lifetime profession. And Miss Raynal, our Latin teacher, who had lost a college job in teaching German because no one wanted German in the Kaiser’s years; when she discovered that I wanted to learn German she gave me free lessons in after-school hours. Such people should not be forgotten.”

Article revised February, 2008.

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