Toilets, Strawberries, and a Love Story

A young scientist’s mischief and moral courage, and the woman who captured his heart

Upon graduation from Cornell, my father and his Irish friend Pat Fox decided they would travel around the world, working as hired hands on ocean liners. My papa heard the idea and immediately put an end to it, reminding my father that he had debts from school he needed to pay off.

Motivated by this sensible advice, my father started looking for a job in northern Virginia and landed one at his first stop. Apparently, the folks at Woodard Research Corporation had never seen a PhD graduate from Cornell and thought my dad was big stuff.

They hired him primarily to set up and manage a radioactive isotope lab. A radioactive isotope, as some of you may know, is a molecule with one atom made radioactive, which makes it possible to trace the molecule in the body, or anywhere else for that matter ... even in a sewer system. One day, my father took a break from the lab to use the bathroom. As he peered into the toilet, he wondered what would happen if he were to pour a radioactive isotope down the toilet. Would it enter the well they drank from? He wondered because Woodard was not connected to the town sewer system and used a private septic system with a drain field.

My father had to answer this question, so after appropriate notice to his colleagues, he poured a small amount of a radioactive isotope into the toilet and flushed it. He later measured the well water to see if he could detect any of the isotope and, sure enough, discovered it had gotten into the water. This was important to know, because they were setting up a radioactive isotope lab where this might happen in the future. He took his results to his boss, the founder of the company, who promptly drilled a new well farther away from the septic field.

The next major adventure for my dad was his research on an herbicide intended for use on strawberries. The Chicago-based company responsible for developing the herbicide had provided funding to Woodard to conduct a safety study so they could bring the herbicide to market. My father had deep training in biochemistry, so he knew the chemical might have estrogenic properties, and further, surmised that it might split in two when exposed to sunlight, yielding an actual estrogenic compound. This was a problem because such compounds can wreak havoc in the body.

He conducted his research and quickly saw that the chemical did precisely as he predicted when exposed to sunlight. Not thinking about corporate process or client politics and only thinking about the ethical implications of a toxic chemical in the food supply, my father immediately reported his results to the FDA. This angered the Chicago company, which made my father’s boss equally irate. The dust soon settled, and my father kept his job, because he was too valuable an asset for Woodard to lose.

These two experiences involving toilets and strawberries gave an early hint of what many people would see as a rebellious nature later in his career – which was simply my father always wanting to do what was right, regardless of consequences.

These stories are fun to tell, but the one I like the most from this time had nothing to do with my dad’s research. The first thing he noticed, on his first day at work, was a shy, beautiful young woman at the front desk. That young woman later was to become my mom. She recounts that she felt a little intimidated by this big shot from Cornell, but even more so because of the way he looked at her, with a slight grin but not saying much. They exchanged words here and there, not ever going too deep, but apparently got to a point when my father felt comfortable asking her to join him on a day trip to a ski slope in nearby West Virginia. My mom was nervous about the invite and looking for a way out. Fortunately, so she thought, it snowed the night before their ski date, only about an inch deep, but that one inch was apparently enough for her purposes, so she called him up and said, because of the snow, she would have to back out.

My father didn’t completely strike out, though, in his dogged pursuit of my mom. He eventually landed a date with her, but one that got off to a questionable start. He told my mom he would take her to a coffee shop, then decided instead to go to a bar in Georgetown. Adding more confusion to the mix, he mistakenly walked into and used the women’s bathroom upon entry. After finishing his business, my dad ordered a beer at the bar, my mom ordered a soda (he hadn’t known she didn’t drink), and they sat down. The date had gotten off to a confusing start, but once they began talking, they quickly realized how many core values they shared. Nerves melted away, love took hold, and soon there were wedding bells ringing in the small Baptist church nestled in my mom’s old neighborhood in Herndon, Virginia.

Soon after their wedding, my father was recruited to a new position at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, by the same person at the FDA who had received my father’s strawberry research results. I’ll share the story of my father’s work at MIT in my next newsletter, which would have lifelong consequences for him.

PS: We encourage you to consider upgrading to a paid subscription. Paid subscribers receive more in-depth articles and an eBook each month featuring 5-8 new recipes from Kim – and your support will help sustain this publication. In our next paid newsletter, I’ll explore the problem of bias, which affects nearly every aspect of our world. I’ll share a story about my father, who showed what can happen when we learn to see beyond our biases to discover larger truths.

Baked Potato Soup, by Kim Campbell

If there is one cooking habit that pays you back again and again, it is learning to build a great pot of soup. Winter soups are easy to batch-prep, budget-friendly, and wonderfully versatile. One simple recipe can become several nourishing meals that store easily and make your week feel lighter and easier.

If you make extra, pour it into freezer-safe containers or mason jars, label and date them, and tuck them into your freezer. Before you know it, you will have wholesome meals ready when you need them most.

Are you ready for this week’s cozy bowl? Here’s a link to the recipe:

https://plantpurecommunities.org/recipes/baked-potato-soup-2/