About Donnell B. Young

Note: The following information was taken from an obituary which appeared in the July 30, 1989 Boston Sunday Globe.

Donnell Young, 1912 Olympian and zoology professor; at 101

Donnell B. Young - 1980 photo

Born in Hanover, MA, Young graduated from Thayer Academy in 1907 and from Amherst College in 1911 with a degree in zoology. A track star while at Amherst College, he set a school record for 440 yards that was unbroken for 50 years. He later competed in the 200- and 400-meter races during the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm.

He taught at Amherst Collect from 1912 to 1916, at American Institute, Springfield, from 1916 to 1917, and summer sessions at the College of William and Mary in 1916 and 1917. After serving with the Army during World War I from 1917 to 1919, he taught at Dalhousie College in Halifax, Nova Scotia for a year. In 1920, Young received a PhD in zoology from Columbia University. For the next seven years he taught at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn. From 1928 to 1930 he taught at the University of Arizona, and at the University of Maine until 1933. In 1933, he moved to Washington where he taught at George Washington University. He was also a premedical adviser, a civil defense director during World War II, and a veterans' advisor after the war.

Young returned to Hanover in 1953 after retirement where he served as chairman of the Hanover School Committee for 10 of his 12 years on the committee. He was also a substitute teacher in Hanover and Brockton High School and many other area schools.

As past president of the Alden Kindred Society, he established a college scholarship fund for the descendants of John and Priscilla Alden and helped restore the Alden Kindred Home. He was a member of the Hanover Historical Society and served on the South Shore National Science Center Committee, Norwell.

He leaves a daughter, Barbara Itz of Hanover, four grandchildren and four great- grandchildren.