PHILLIP C. HEEMSTRA was born in Melrose Park, Illinois, on 9 December 1941 and died at his home in Grahamstown, South Africa, on 29 August 2019, at the age of 77 after a long illness. He attended high school at the Ottawa Township High School in Ottawa, Illinois. Phil's sister, Connie Stewart of Tulsa, Oklahoma, recounts his treks then into local sewers to collect salamanders that he kept in their mother's wash tubs in the basement of their house, the beginnings of his interests in biology. During summers Phil worked as a lifeguard when he wasn't busy fishing.
Phil's father, Clarence William Heemstra, was a clothing store salesman then worked for General Foods, then for Libby Owens Ford. Phil's mother, Lydia Ann Epcke Heemstra, was a Home Economics teacher for 23 years and managed the high school cafeteria. She was selected as one of 5,000 (out of 2,000,000) American Outstanding...