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STANLEY AND MARILYN WEITZMAN

STAN AND MARILYN WEITZMAN have one of the longest-running partnerships in ichthyology. They have known each other since elementary school and in 2008 will celebrate their sixtieth wedding anniversary. ‘‘We’re best friends,’’ Marilyn says, explaining at least part of the secret of their success. From the beginning, their personal and professional lives have been seamlessly meshed. Both developed an early interest in biology (Marilyn in plants, Stan in fishes), and they attended the same colleges. While Stan went on to pursue his graduate education, Marilyn worked to help support them. Later, she joined him in ichthyological research. Along the way, they found time to raise two children. Stanley Howard Weitzman was born in Mill Valley, California on 16 March 1927. His father, John Howard Weitzman (1900–1971), was a photographer. His mother, Iva May Hager (1902– 1999), stayed at home to raise Stan and his younger sister Katherine. When their home was burned to the ground in the Mount Tamalpais wildfire in 1929, they moved to nearby San Anselmo, Marin County, where Stan grew up. Howard, as Stan’s father preferred to be called, ran his photography business from the basement of the house. In the summer, the family lived there as well while they rented out the upper part to vacationing tenants. Although they were never prosperous, they got by adequately through the Depression and the war years. Like most of us, Stan gained his education partly through his formal schoolwork and partly through his outside interests and activities. He remembers a particularly influential teacher in grade school named Valerie Ansel. She was a strict disciplinarian, and for that reason many students did not like her. In Stan and Marilyn’s view, however, ‘‘she was the kind of teacher that a lot of people hate while they’re in school and then later realize that she was a great teacher that not only taught schoolwork but maturity.’’ She introduced her students to classical music and literature and taught a reading course for advanced students. Stan recalls reading books by William Beebe (1877–1962) and others that fed his growing interest in natural history. During his school years, he attended the local Presbyterian Church, where his mother was a deacon. Professors and students from the nearby theological seminary would occasionally come and teach Sunday school or give a sermon in the church. Stan thus had the opportunity to talk with these individuals about religion and science. He enjoyed discussing the philosophy of religion and found it to be a valuable educational experience. Fortunately, most of them were quite liberal and understood Stan’s point of view. Outside the classroom, Stan was drawn to outdoor activities, especially swimming in the nearby Eel River. In the process, he learned something about the ecology and hydrology of the river. He also enjoyed exploring San Anselmo Creek, which ran through the middle of the town of the same name. This provided another good biology lesson, as broken sewer mains dumped their untreated contents directly into the stream. The water was totally lifeless in the center of town, but as the sewage became more diluted downstream, it served as a fertilizer and actually enhanced the stream’s productivity. Environmental consciousness was considerably less developed in those days, and Stan still marvels at how local residents and businesses put up with the malodorous waters at their very doorstep. Stan’s interest in fishes began as a reaction to a couple of unsuccessful experiences with dogs. His father bought him a collie when he was five or six years old. The dog developed an excessively enthusiastic devotion to Stan, however, and would try to bite anyone it thought was threatening its young charge. Such behavior, of course, was unacceptable, and the dog had to be replaced. The second dog was killed by a car. At that point, his parents gave up on dogs. Later, a family friend gave Stan some goldfish, which promptly died. Losing a fish was considerably less traumatic than losing a dog, however, and Stan was willing to try again. As it happened, the father of one of his classmates kept tropical fish, so Stan went to visit him. The man, Mr. Calvin D.