University of California: In Memoriam, 1942

Deming Gerow Maclise: Los Angeles
1890-1942
Business Manager

Deming Gerow Maclise, Business Manager of the University at the Los Angeles campus, died October 28, 1942. He was born in Oakland, California, August 21, 1890. He attended the Lincoln Grammar School and the Oakland High School, and entered the University of California in the fall of 1910. After three years of work at Berkeley and one year at Davis, he graduated in May, 1914, with the degree of B.S. in the College of Agriculture. His record in scholarship was uniformly excellent. He also made his mark in athletics. He was captain of his high school basketball team, which won a California interscholastic championship, and at the University he established in the high hurdles a record which stood for many years. In student activities he was always prominent. He was a member and house manager of Alpha Delta Phi, a football manager, bookkeeper for the Associated Students, and, later, Assistant to the Graduate Manager.

In September, 1914, he married Marion Gay, California '12, and moved to a ranch in the Mount Lassen region. For the next seven years he engaged in various ranching and engineering activities. He returned to the University in 1921, to become successively Assistant Comptroller at Davis, at Los Angeles, and finally Business Manager on the Los Angeles campus. As the Regents' representative on the Board of Control he was charged with reorganizing the Associated Students and re‘stablishing the solvency of that body. He succeeded so well that a large deficit was paid off in six years. Largely as a result of his efforts, the organization is now financially sound.

In all his dealings with the public, the faculty, and the student body, Maclise was respected for his honesty and uprightness, for hisconscientiousness, and for his unswerving loyalty to the University and to the State which he served. His word was never lightly given, but when once he had made a promise, he unfailingly kept it. To his friends his most endearing qualities were modesty and a gentleness of character which must at times have made the execution of his duties very difficult. To the sound hardheadedness of his Scottish ancestry he united a kindly and understanding heart.

He is survived by his widow, Marion Gay Maclise, two sons, Deming, Jr., and Lincoln Gay, both commissioned officers in the United States Navy, and a daughter, Martha, a senior at Berkeley.