Ernst A. Bessey House, 213 University Dr. (1922)

Ernst A. Bessey House, February 1992. Photo Credit: Kevin S. Forsyth.

Ernst Athearn Bessey (1877–1957) was Professor of Botany beginning in 1910, retiring as Chair of the Department of Botany and Plant Pathology in 1944. He served as President of the Michigan Academy of Sciences in 1915. As Professor of Botany he resided in Faculty Row № 7, better known today as Cowles House.

E. A. Bessey was the son of Charles Edwin Bessey (1845–1915, M.A.C. ’69), another prominent botanist who became Chair of Botany, Dean, and Acting Chancellor at the University of Iowa. Mrs. E. A. Bessey, née Edith Carleton Higgins, was, like her husband, a student of Dr. Bessey the elder.