A key player in building reputation of Harper College's biology department

Around Harper College circles, John Hiram Thompson was among the big three in its biology department, having been one of the original nucleus of faculty hired to start the campus.

He and two colleagues began teaching the college's science courses in temporary classrooms at Elk Grove High School in 1967 before the campus opened in 1968. Mr. Thompson went on to shape its biology curriculum, including obtaining human cadavers for its anatomy classes.

The 47-year Arlington Heights resident died Monday at the age of 84.

Professor Paul Holdway, who shared an office with Mr. Thompson at Harper in the early years, remembers his passion to make Harper's biology and anatomy classes comparable to a medical school experience. "He took a sabbatical and sat in on classes at the (University of Illinois at Chicago) Medical Center," Holdway says, "and he saw them using cadavers. He was a real pioneer in that. A lot of four-year colleges still don't have them."

Mr. Thompson had been recruited from Maine East High School where he taught math and biology, as well as the first Russian foreign language curriculum in the country.

During his early years at Harper, he served as the first chairman of its math and science department, while still teaching.

"I have to believe that there probably thousands of nursing students who took his anatomy classes," says his daughter, Karen Thompson of Golden, Colo.

Mr. Thompson and his wife, Dorcas, lived in a small house in Arlington Heights while he worked at Maine East, but by 1967 they moved with their seven children into a more spacious home, and one that had historic ties with the founding family of the village.

Located at 619 N. Arlington Heights Road, it had been built in 1865 for James Dunton, son of Asa Dunton who founded Arlington Heights. Legend holds that James Dunton and his family gathered on its roof in 1871, to watch the Great Chicago Fire.

Over the years, it was home to a former mayor of Arlington Heights, as well as a physician who turned it into a sanitarium, and even a high school principal's family who rented out rooms to Arlington Park seasonal workers.

By the time Mr. Thompson and his family moved in, it was in a state of disrepair, family members say, and he set out to renovate it. With its 18 rooms, all with 12-foot ceilings, he had plenty to keep him busy after he retired from Harper in 1987.

Mr. Thompson did leave a lasting legacy for his family, in the form of his diary entries made during his World War II service in the Army. He enlisted at the age of 18 and shipped out to Marseilles shortly after D-Day.

"His matter-of-fact, understated reporting shows him as no more than a boy, participating in an uncompromising fashion in a horrific war," his daughter adds.

Mr. Thompson served throughout Europe and at the end of the war his company occupied Berchtesgaden, the location of Hitler's mountain retreat.

Besides his daughter, Mr. Thompson is survived by is survived by his wife Dorcas and children: Paul Thompson, of Sioux Falls, S.D.; Marjorie Thompson, Oneonta, N.Y.; Richard Thompson, Odessa, N.Y.; Sue Cullumber, Chandler, Ariz.; Sandra Thompson, Arlington Heights; and Laury Burns, Tempe, Ariz.; as well as eight grandchildren.

In lieu of formal services, Mr. Thompson requested that his body be donated to science for use as a teaching tool.