James Arnold Henderson, 1912 - 2008
James
Arnold Henderson was born in Shoal Lake, Manitoba in 1912. He always told
his children that Manitoba had to be doubled in size as a consequence of his
birth. He grew up on the family farm near the village of Cardale Manitoba.
Upon completion of high school in Brandon, Manitoba, Arnold (as his family
called him) enrolled at the Ontario Veterinary College in Guelph, Ontario, from
where he graduated with a D.V.M. in 1936.
Upon completion of an M.Sc. at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York in 1938,
Dr. Henderson was hired to operate the first artificial insemination centre in
North America in Flemington, New Jersey. In 1939 he joined the faculty of
the University of Illinois in Champaign, Illinois, as an assistant professor in
the Department of Animal Pathology, where he remained for seven years.
However this period was interrupted by four years of service in the Royal
Canadian Air Force. He trained as a navigator on bomber aircraft and was
shipped to England in 1942. Upon his arrival he was seconded to Cambridge
University and the Milk Marketing Board as the general advisor on the
establishment and operation Great Britain’s first bovine artificial insemination
program. It was at the Milk Marketing Board that Jim met his future wife,
Valerie Gertrude Underhill.
In 1946 Jim and Valerie were married in Toronto, Ontario and relocated to
Guelph, Ontario, where Jim assumed the position of professor in the Clinical
Department of the Ontario Veterinary College. In 1950, he became Head of
the Clinical Department, a position he held for the next thirteen years.
It was during this period that Jim, besides his college duties, participated
actively in the artificial insemination program in Ontario. He was twice
elected as the Canadian representative to the Executive Board of the American
Veterinary Medical Association and served as the President of the Canadian
Veterinary Medical Association in 1958-1959. In collaboration with Dr.
Douglas C. Blood he published the classic text book,
Veterinary Medicine, now in its seventh edition. The text has been
translated into several languages and is still used at veterinary colleges
around the world.
In 1963, Jim and Valerie and their two sons left Ontario for Pullman,
Washington, where he became Dean of the College Veterinary Medicine at
Washington State University. It was from this position that Jim retired
from professional life in 1973.
Jim and Valerie retired to Vancouver Island and have led an active and
productive life for the last thirty-five years. Jim returned to the life
of his childhood, living in various rural locations near Victoria, keeping some
beef cattle, a Jersey cow, poultry, raising Norwegian Fiord horses and generally
enjoying an outdoor life.
He is survived by his wife, Valerie, two sons, three grandchildren and a great
grand daughter.
