Doctor Laurence G. Wesson, 90, of Scarborough and summer resident of Bremen, a leading authority on kidney physiology, died of natural causes on Sept. 2 in Scarborough, after having been in failing health for over a year.
Laurence Goddard Wesson was born on Oct. 18, 1917 in Midland, Mich., the son of Laurence Goddard Wesson, Sr. and Elizabeth Matthews.
During his childhood Dr. Wesson’s family moved several times, including to Baltimore, Md., and Nashville, Tenn. He spent many long vacations with his grandparents in Jackson, Ohio, and in exploring the extensive wild lands there with his younger brother, Robert, he developed a lifelong love of nature and natural history. By the time he was 22 he had become expert in entomology and published several scientific papers on the ants of southern Ohio, discovering and naming at least six new species.
Having graduated early from high school he went to Haverford College, Haverford, Penn. In 1938 he graduated summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from Haverford with a degree in chemistry.
He earned his MD degree from Harvard Medical School in 1942 and served internship at Boston City Hospital in 1942 and 1943 before joining the U.S. Army to serve in WWII. He was commissioned in the Medical Corps in 1943 and served as an artillery battalion surgeon with the rank of captain from 1944 to 1946. Landing in Normandy in August, 1944, he saw action in France, southern Germany, and Austria, first with General George Patton’s Third Army and later with General Patch s Seventh Army. He was among the first Americans to relieve the Dachau concentration camp and to visit Hitler s refuge near Berchtesgaden.
After leaving the Army as a major in 1946 he took a staff position as Instructor in Physiology at the New York University College of Medicine, Manhattan. This position developed to assistant professor, then associate professor of medicine at the NYU postgraduate medical school from 1950 through 1962. As protégé of Homer W. Smith, leading authority on human kidney physiology, he developed a keen research interest in nephrology that became the focus of his professional career.
Dr. Wesson married Eleanor Fessenden Roelse in Upper Montclair, N.J., on June 4, 1948. They had four children born in New York and New Jersey between 1949 and 1953.
In 1960 Dr. Wesson was awarded a 27-year life grant, or Research Career Award, from the National Institutes of Health, to pursue research in kidney physiology, and in 1962 he accepted an appointment as Professor of Medicine to create the new Division of Nephrology at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia. At Jefferson he was founder and first president of the local chapter of Sigma Xi, the research honor society. He served as Attending Physician (1962 – 1988) and Head of the Division of Nephrology from 1962 to 1974. He taught advanced courses, designed and directed the Clinical Research Center (1962 – 1966), served as first editor of the Sigma Xi Research Bulletin (1973 – 1976), supported continuing improvements in kidney dialysis, and consulted for the Food and Drug Administration from 1970 to 1974. In 1969 he published the latest standard textbook on Physiology of the Human Kidney. From 1949 to 1998 he published over 65 articles in scientific research journals. Dr. Wesson was a member of the American Physiological Society, American College of Physicians, Sigma Xi, American Federation of Clinical Research, American Heart Association, and Alpha Omega Alpha. He and his family lived in Rosemont and Phoenixville, in suburban Philadelphia, Penn., from 1962 to 1994.
Dr. Wesson was a long-time summer resident of Bremen. The couple lived on Bremen Long Island from 1954 to 1964 and on Oar Island from 1964 to 1992.
As Dr. Wesson gradually retired, between 1982 and 1987, he pursued many avocations, particularly outdoor activities and natural history. He studied nature, with special interest in mushrooms, birds, flowers, and trees. He took extensive canoeing and rafting trips, both wilderness and whitewater, including to Cheesuncook Lake and the Allagash Wilderness Waterway in northern Maine. His many interests included playing chess, wood fireplaces and log-cutting, winemaking, and dry stone wall masonry. He was a competent and creative self-taught carpenter, electrician, and plumber. Besides canoeing, at various times his sporting interests included horseback riding, squash, and swimming. Several times the couple traveled to the Caribbean, Nova Scotia, the South Pacific, and Hawaii.
He was a lifelong advocate of conservation and preservation of natural habitat, setting aside lands in Ohio for the Lake Katharine State Nature Preserve and the greater portion of Oar Island in a forever-wild conservation easement in 1975. The couple relocated to Lansdale, Penn. in 1994, to Topsham in 1998, and to Scarborough in 2003.
Dr. Wesson is survived by his wife of 60 years, Eleanor R. Wesson of Scarborough; four children, Laurence N. Wesson of Blue Bell, Penn., Anne R. Wesson of Cumberland Center, Robert F. Wesson of Exeter, N.H., and John M. Wesson of Yarmouth; and eight grandchildren, Cristina W. Brooks, Georgianna W. Rustell, Alice G. Wesson, Ann G. Wesson, Robert S. Wesson, John G. Wheatley, Katharine A. Wheatley, and Meriel S. Wheatley.
Memorial service 1 p.m., Sun., Oct. 12 at Hobbs Funeral Home, 230 Cottage Rd., South Portland.
