LILA GATLIN
Obituary
Lila Lee Gatlin (née Krause), 89, of
Newton, Kansas, a scientist, author and homemaker, died peacefully on
September 19, 2017, surrounded by members of her family. She earned a
PhD in Chemistry at The University of Texas, Austin in 1963, for her
work on nucleic acid structure and served for more than 30 years on
the Board of Directors of Krause Plow Corporation in Hutchinson,
Kansas.
Lila was born on August 23, 1928, in
Hutchinson, Kansas, to Anna and Henry Krause. Mr. Krause was the
inventor of the one-way disc plow in 1916, the first conservation
tillage tool, and founder of Krause Plow Corporation. Prior to
attaining her PhD, Lila earned a Bachelor of Science degree in
Chemistry at the University of Tulsa in 1957 and a Master of Science
degree in Chemistry at Pennsylvania State University in 1959. She
worked as a lecturer and researcher in molecular biology and genetics
at the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California,
Berkeley and at other institutions. Some of her writings and findings
were published in American Journal of Physics, Nature and Journal of
Molecular Evolution among others, and her book Information Theory and
the Living System which focused on DNA, thermodynamics and evolution
was published by Columbia University Press in 1972.
In 1947, Lila married Carl Gatlin who
was Dean of the Engineering Department at Stanford University in Palo
Alto, California, at the time of his death in 1977. She is survived
by four children who each reside in Newton, Kansas: Ameera Lee
Gatlin, Jefferson Carl Gatlin, Laura Ann Gatlin, and Jennifer Lynn
Gatlin; two granddaughters, Joan Marie Brunkard of Atlanta, Georgia,
and Tracy Beth Gatlin of Lake County, California; and two
great-grandsons, Maxwell Jordan Baxter of Santa Barbara, California,
and Benjamin August Baxter of Atlanta, Georgia. Her three siblings
preceded her in death: Adin Elmer Krause, Evalyn Mae Krause Rains,
and Norman Luther Krause.
Ahead of her time, Lila practiced yoga,
meditation, alternative medicine and vegetarianism, long before such
practices were in vogue. While deeply grounded in her Christian
faith, Lila welcomed insights and perspectives from all spiritual,
cultural, and theoretical backgrounds. She instilled in her children
and grandchildren, by example, values of open-mindedness,
non-judgment, independence and resilience. With an innate love of
books and a lifelong interest and pursuit of new ideas and theories,
Lila spent much of her life reading and writing. By her bedside were
her father's bible and a pair of worn leather-bound editions of
Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet, gifts from Lila and Carl to each other
on their wedding day; an excerpt from annotations in their respective
volumes appears below. Services will be private and held at a later
date. Petersen Funeral Home handled arrangements.
"For life and death are one, even
as the river and the sea are one.
In the depth of your hopes and desires
lies your silent knowledge of the beyond;
And like seeds dreaming beneath the
snow your heart dreams of spring.
Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden
the gate to eternity."
Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
