Homer W. Paxton was born on March 2, 1916 to Anna F. and Homer L. Paxton in Chadron, Nebraska. He was raised in Chadron and attended the Chadron public schools through high school. He and his father enjoyed hunting and fishing together. His father introduced him to smoking and drinking on those camping trips. Homer Lovejoy Paxton was an alcoholic and his son was often sent to find him in a bar and get his pay to take home before he spent it all.
Homer graduated from high school in 1934 and then attended Chadron State Teachers’ College in Chadron. While in college he held a variety of jobs, one of which was butcher in a meat store or supermarket. He earned a BSc in Chemistry with a Physics minor from Chadron In 1938, the same year as his sister, Frieda, graduated from high school.
After he graduated from college he went to the University of Nebraska in Lincoln to get his Masters Degree in Physical Chemistry. His thesis was “Surface Tensions of Solutions of Cadmium Iodide in Methanol”. He had a teaching assistantship and minored in organic chemistry. He also had National Defense Research Council Graduate Fellowship (full-time research at the University of Nebraska) on organoarsenicals for poison gas warfare from 1940-1941.
At some point between 1940 and 1942, Homer’s father passed away. He died of pernicious anemia brought on by his alcoholism. Homer tried to be a support to his mother and a father figure to his sister.
While Frieda was in college she joined a sorority, where she met Ruth Pont. She and Ruth became good friends and Homer met Ruth while home from the University.
After receiving his MSc in Chemistry, Homer went to Pudue University to pursue his Ph.D. He had a teaching assistantship and was majoring in Organic Chemistry. He had started his thesis in antimalarial work and his minor was biochemistry. By then the US was at war and he was drafted into the essential war industry to do chemical research. He worked on explosives, rocket fuels, and synthetic rubber, among other things. This forced him to leave the university and move further east. He was in Connecticut for a time and then was working for U. S. Rubber in NJ by the end of the war. He and Ruth Pont married on December 6, 1944 in Plainfield, Illinois. They stayed in NJ and he continued to work as a research chemist for US Rubber Company in Garfield, NJ.
When Homer and Ruth first married they lived in a series of apartments as they moved with Homer’s research assignments. By 1946 they were living in a third floor walk-up in Passaic, NJ. Homer carried Ruth up all three flights when he brought her and baby Janice Ruth home after she was born on December 31, 1946. The baby was supposed to come in January and they had nothing purchased for her when Ruth went into labor on New Year’s Eve. Homer was disappointed that she was born at 8:30 p.m. and didn’t make it to be the New Year’s Baby. He was consoled when he found out that 1946 was the first year that babies born after April qualified as income tax deductions. They soon moved to Sixth Avenue in Passaic where they had a first floor of a two-family house. They lived there until after Byron was born on December 12, 1950.
The second baby meant a need for some changes and the world was changing, too. In the summer of 1951 Ruth flew out to attend the Pont Family Reunion in California, but she had to go alone. Homer refused to allow her to take the children on the plane – “If you take the children and fly to California, I won’t be here when you come back” was what was reported. Homer spent his summer vacation in Passaic taking care of four year old Janice and six-month old Byron. A year or so later the family moved to Prospect St. The apartment was, again, the first floor of a two-family house, but somewhat larger. It was also closer to Homer’s job, so they sold his beloved car and he either walked or took a taxi to work. The rent was $48 per month and the place was so filthy that Ruth spent two weeks cleaning it before they moved.
During these years Homer was a productive researcher. He worked on classified projects and traveled to give papers at conferences around the country. Here are a couple of Google results:
Volume Changes in the Methyl Alcohol-Toluene System, L. S. Mason and Homer. Paxton, Cite this: J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1939, 61, 1, 67–69
United States Patent METHOD OF BONDING ELASTOMERS TO OTHER MATERIALS AND ADHESIVE COMPOSITIONS USED THEREFOR Homer W. Paxton, Passaic, N. J., assignor to United States Rubber Company, New York, N. Y., a corporation of New Jersey No Drawing. Application August 31, 1954 Serial No. 453,415
Patented Apr. 6, 1 954 COATED ARTICLE AND PROCESS OF MAKING SAME Homer W. Paxton and Frank S. Elkins, Passaic, N. J assignors to United States Rubber Company, New York, N. Y., a corporation of New Jersey No Drawing. Application March 10, 1951, Serial No. 215,029
In 1955 US Rubber opened a new research facility in Wayne, NJ and the transfer meant that Homer and Ruth bought a car so that they could commute. Ruth went back to teaching and Janice and Byron attended Wayne schools while she was teaching there. The family built a new home in Oakland, NJ and became home-owners for the first time. Ruth taught in the Oakland public schools from then until she retired.
Homer was delighted with his new property. He bought a roto-tiller and established a huge garden in the back yard. He ordered fruit trees and planted vegetables. The year he became eligible for a 4-week vacation, after 20 years with US Rubber, the company gave him his severance pay at the beginning of his vacation and told him to clean out his office. He was devastated and spent the whole four weeks in a drunken stupor sitting in his chair in the back yard.
As a research chemist with a productive history in the 1962, Homer was not without options. He pulled together his resume and sent it out. Within the next few months he was hired as a research chemist by Manhattan Rubber Company at a salary substantially larger than the one he had been getting from US Rubber. One of his projects was developing a good hose for making artificial snow! He worked for Manhattan Rubber until 1971.
Homer’s alcoholism became a larger and larger problem after he left US Rubber in 1962. He was hospitalized in 1966 with liver problems and the family was told he might have liver cancer. Ruth was increasingly unhappy with their life and was contemplating divorce. From 8-24-1971 until 10-27-1971 he spent time in rehabilitation at the Hazelden Clinic in Minnesota and then followed up with sporadic AA meetings and work with a psychologist. He was sober for a time, but had lost his job at Manhattan Rubber due to chronic illness/absenteeism. He was given a severance, so he was not eligible for unemployment. His last resume in 1971 listed his expertise as a consulting chemist doing free-lance consulting.
In addition to his liver problems, type 2 diabetes, and alcoholism Homer had developed an hiatal hernia. This gave him a great deal of anxiety because he felt that it was a reason for not being employable and he arranged in June of 1972 to have the surgery to repair the hernia. Unfortunately, while the operation was not supposed to be a big deal, he lost his sobriety and reported to the hospital inebriated. The doctors told him that he would have to wait for the surgery until his blood work was acceptable. He passed away sometime early on Sunday morning, June 4, 1972 at Ridgewood Hospital.