David Arthur Chisholm was born in Nanaimo, British Columbia, Canada on August 10, 1942, and died in St. Louis, Missouri on April 6, 2023, at the age of 80. He is perhaps best described as a brilliant, self-educated, Renaissance Man. David grew up in Nanaimo (on Vancouver Island) and had a particularly difficult childhood, which affected him for the rest of his life. Nonetheless, he led a remarkably eclectic and colourful life.

While a junior in high school, David was forced to leave school (many years later, he did finish high school by completing a GED program). After dropping out of high school, he worked as a logger for a short time, before joining the Royal Canadian Air Force. He had hoped to learn to fly and become a pilot, but instead was assigned to NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) above the Arctic Circle, and charged with monitoring incoming missile attacks against the US and Canada. After receiving an honorable discharge, he joined a telecommunications company for several years and was sent to South Vietnam and to Iran to work on these countries’ communications networks. He loved to recount stories of these times – notably, leaving Vietnam just as the Tet Offensive commenced, and getting trapped in a fervent religious procession in Iran, during the reign of the Shah.

When David returned to Canada in the late 1960s, he took a position as an equipment designer in the Physics Department at McGill University in Montreal. He delighted in recounting that one of the physicists in the program once said to him: “Chisholm, you are always coming up with new ideas, and of 100 of your ideas, 99 are complete garbage, but there is always that one remaining one that is brilliant and worth its weight in gold”. A machine designed for a cyclotron and nicknamed “Thumper” came from one such idea. It was used for many years at McGill and David was immensely proud of his role in designing and building it.

Although the McGill job was ideal and probably David’s favorite, he eventually came back to British Columbia where he worked at the Vancouver School of Arts. In 1977, he moved to St. Louis, following his friend and later spouse, Zuleyma Tang-Martinez, whom he had met in Vancouver. Although the marriage was short-lived, they remained friends until the end of David’s life.

In St. Louis, David initially free-lanced by designing and building research equipment for biology
faculty and graduate students at the University of Missouri-St. Louis (UMSL). In the days before
computers, he also produced graphs and illustrations for scientific publications. One of his most
notable accomplishments in this area consisted of exquisite, anatomically accurate drawings of
the patterns of scales on a newly discovered species of snake, for a paper published by UMSL’s
then Chancellor, Arnold Grobman.

David subsequently worked at Washington University for approximately 22 years. His first job
there was in the Biology Department, in a lab doing neurobiological research on bats; David was
responsible for collecting bats on Caribbean islands, transporting them to the university, and
then feeding and caring for them while they were in the bat colony in the lab. When his boss
retired, David changed course and obtained a position as a shop technician, teaching students
to use power tools, and prepare art exhibitions in the 3-D sculpture department at the Sam
Fox School of Design & Visual Arts; he stayed in this position until his retirement.

In addition to his affection for the bats at work, David had an affinity for animals more broadly.
He had several cats during his life; his favorite was, undoubtedly, Lady Grey who accompanied
him from Vancouver to St. Louis and was his companion for many years. Another favorite was
a cat he rescued and nursed back to health after finding it almost frozen during a major St. Louis
snowstorm. He also liked birds and once tried to save (unsuccessfully) a baby blue jay which
fell out of its nest after its parents had disappeared. Much to the consternation and disapproval
of his municipality’s housing inspectors, David insisted on letting his front and back yards grow
wild ”to create more natural habit for wildlife”. This led to his spending many hours observing
various species of birds courting, nesting, and feeding young outside his house.

David never met a book he didn’t like! He had an extensive and diverse library – he was an avid
reader and actually read almost all the books he collected, as well as numerous magazines and
periodicals! Moreover, he seemed to remember everything he read! As a consequence, he
astonished friends by his ability to discuss at depth topics as diverse as Chinese foot-binding,
echolocation in bats, the art of Claes Oldenburg, the writings of Mark Twain, or forgotten women
explorers of the past. In fact, sometimes it seemed that, regardless of a topic that one might
mention in passing during a conversation, David had a book and information about it. He loved
rummaging through used book stores and often would drop off books or magazines at friends’
doors with notes such as “I found this and thought you might find it interesting” or “This seems to
be right up your alley”.

As should be obvious from the descriptions above, David was not only intellectually gifted, but
also multi-talented. He could build almost anything out of wood or metal, was an excellent
draftsman, and liked to write short stories and poems in his spare time. He even made and
starred in a short movie of a simulated suicide; this movie was selected for an amateur film
festival at the Tivoli Theater in St. Louis and is now in the Canadian Film Archives.

Despite an eccentric and often disorganized life-style, David was extremely generous with his
time and ideas, characteristics that endeared him to his friends. His quirky sense of humor was familiar to almost anyone who spent time with him. After being in Vietnam, he visited one of the
areas where he had previously lived in interior British Columbia, where word had spread that he
had died in Vietnam; David responded to friends amazed to see him alive with a big grin and a
quote from Mark Twain, “The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” After
arriving in St. Louis, when Zuleyma’s academics friends asked him, “And what do you do
David?”, he would typically respond with a twinkle in his eyes, “Oh, I am just a professional
neurotic!”

In the years after his retirement, there were two highlights. First, he finally learned to fly; almost
on a weekly basis, he was thrilled to take a plane high up into the sky, while looking down at the
land beneath him. Unfortunately, medical issues related to his heart forced him to give up flying
because of the risks involved. Second, a couple of years before his death he took a trip to Big
Bend National Park (in Texas) with his friend Clifford LaMotte. David was totally enamored of
the beauty of the park and could not stop talking about it on his return to St. Louis. Because of
this, part of his ashes have been scattered at Big Bend.

Although David never became an American citizen and often talked about some day moving
back to Canada, he was keenly aware of current events and USA politics. He supported Black
Lives Matter and abhorred the resurgence of hate groups and right-wing political extremism. He
also was a strong supporter of the separation of church and state, and disapproved of all efforts
to inject religious beliefs into politics.

David is survived by his dear youngest brother, Tim Chisholm, and one other brother, Robert
Chisholm, both of Vancouver, Canada, and by dear friends, Zuleyma Tang-Martinez, Tim Cronk,
Clifford E. LaMotte, and Marion Smith, all of St. Louis. The unexpected passing of cherished
friends Carol Oliver and Steve Duffe, shortly before his own death, weighed heavily on David’s
heart. David also is missed by his friends in the gliding club he joined after his retirement.
Donations in memory of David can be made to the Southern Poverty Law Center
(https://www.splcenter.org/ ) or to Americans United for Separation of Church and State
(https://www.au.org/donate) .