Donald Lloyd Hooper

Donald Lloyd Hooper was born November 18, 1938 in the Chipman Memorial Hospital in St Stephen NB. His parents were Lloyd Douglas Hooper and Melva Henrietta (Nodding) Hooper. He is survived by his wife Shirley (Smillie), his daughter Lorraine, son in law Roderick and granddaughter Beau.

Don's early memories included watching his father go off to work in shirt, tie and suit, and his mother doing water testing with colour tests in a tiny laboratory set up at home. This may well have influenced his choice of Chemistry for a career.

In high school years in Black's Harbour, there were the Boy Scouts and summer camp, a family place on Lake Utopia, small boats, sailing and swimming. There was also enough study time to earn two major scholarships to UNB.

If colour tests led to Chemistry, his faculty advisor in first year, Prof. Wiener, Professor of Organic Chemistry, helped ensure that Chemistry would be Don's career.

In Don's final undergrad year UNB purchased one of the first Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectrometers in Canada, and he became UNB's first student to do Masters and Doctoral projects based on NMR.

One of the first NMR spectrometers in Britain was installed at the new University of East Anglia, so this was Don and Shirley's next stop. There was two years of research and a little teaching (as Assistant Lecturer!). There was also a new little Renault car and lots of holiday and vacation time. With a little money and a little tent, they visited every country in western Europe, save Andorra and Norway.

Dalhousie University had purchased its first (used) NMR and needed an expert. Don was the lucky winner of the job and kept it for the next 37 years, moving through spectrometers of increasing power and cost, eventually housed in the Atlantic Region Magnetic Resonance Centre. He managed the Centre and the ARMRC staff cooperated with all the Atlantic Region Universities.

Don for years after retirement was recognized in public by former students of Dal Classes. Over the years the classes were first year classes, second year organic and physical classes and many years of fourth year and graduate structure determination classes. No, not all in any year.

Don used all the sabbatical leave Dal allowed him, spending memorable seasons in Ottawa, Norwich, England and Edinburgh, Scotland.

He was a charter member of the NMR Discussion Group of the UK and attended many yearly meetings and workshops. This enabled an equal number of short holidays in Europe.

Don also was an active member of the Canadian Institute of Chemistry, attending annual conferences in what he considered interesting Canadian cities, and of the American Chemical Society for conferences in "fun" American cities - think San Francisco and New Orleans.

In retirement Shirley and Don went back to travel - driving to BC and back, to the Carolinas, and touring to Greece and Turkey with a UNB tour.

He started to do a genealogy of his family, however many people had followed the Hooper's paths starting in Massachusetts in 1635. It was more fun producing a 50 page genealogy of Shirley's mothers family, the Wymans of Beaver River.

As retirement loomed, Don had found some new interests, becoming a member and faithful attendant of the meetings of the Royal Nova Scotia Historical Society and a less frequent attendant of Heritage Trust. The more unexpected was a return to churchgoing, becoming a member of the Presbyterian Church of Saint David, Halifax, about 60 years after his christening in the Auld Kirk, St. George NB.