Stanley Kerr

{{short description|American physician (1894–1976)}} {{Infobox person | name = Stanley Kerr | birth_name = Stanley Elphinstone Kerr | birth_date={{birth date|1894|3|30}} | birth_place=Hopewell, New Jersey | death_date={{death date and age|1976|12|14|1894|3|30}} | death_place=Princeton, New Jersey | occupation = Humanitarian, clinical biochemist, educator | relatives = {{Plainlist| * Malcolm H. Kerr (son) * Steve Kerr (grandson) }} }} '''Stanley Elphinstone Kerr''' (March 30, 1894 – December 14, 1976) was an American humanitarian, clinical biochemist and educator.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CZNNAQAAIAAJ&q=%22+Kerr,+Stanley+Elphinstone%22+1894|title = World Who's who in Science: A Biographical Dictionary of Notable Scientists from Antiquity to the Present|year = 1968}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Stanley Kerr |title=The Dream Palace of the Arabs A Generation's Odyssey |page=101}}</ref>

==Life and career==

Kerr was the son of a Presbyterian minister.<ref name=":0">{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/810537/2019/02/11/thompson-on-a-night-steve-kerr-wont-forget-the-armenian-community-reminds-him-his-grandparents-will-never-be-forgotten/|title=On a night Steve Kerr won't forget, the Armenian community reminds him his grandparents will never be forgotten|date=2019-02-13|language=en-GB|access-date=2019-02-13 |last1=Ii |first1=Marcus Thompson }}</ref> A clinical biochemist at Walter Reed Hospital, he left the United States in 1919 to serve as a volunteer for Near East Relief, an American charity created to help the Armenians. Kerr began his service in Aleppo during an Armenian refugee crisis when many of the survivors of the Armenian genocide had escaped.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://uproxx.com/dimemag/steve-kerr-middle-east-armenia-warriors/|title=The Inside Story Of Steve Kerr And His Family's Little-Known History Of Altruism In The Middle East|date=2016-05-25|website=UPROXX|language=en-GB|access-date=2016-06-03}}</ref> He worked as a medical and sanitary officer who cared for the survivors of the march of refugees through the desert. He also worked to recover Armenian children from the Kurdish and Turkoman families into which they had been forced.

In 1921 Kerr and Elsa Reckman joined the staff of a Near East Relief orphanage for Armenian children at Nahr Ibrahim, Lebanon. One of the Armenian refugees was as a flower girl in their wedding in 1922. The orphanage was abandoned in 1923 due to a typhoid outbreak.<ref name=":0" />

After Kerr earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry in 1925 from the University of Pennsylvania, he and Elsa returned to the Middle East where he accepted the position of chairman of the Department of Biochemistry at the American University of Beirut. Elsa Kerr also served on the AUB faculty as Dean of Women students. They had four children: Marion, Dorothy, Douglas, and Malcolm H. Kerr.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1976-12-15 |title=DR. STANLEY E. KERR, 82, BIOCHEMIST, PROFESSOR |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1976/12/15/archives/dr-stanley-e-kerr-82-biochemist-professor.html |access-date=2022-12-08 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>

In 1965, following 40 years of faculty service, Kerr retired with the rank of Distinguished Professor. In recognition of his service, the Republic of Lebanon conferred upon him its Order of Merit and its National Order of the Cedar (Chevalier rank). He and Elsa retired to Princeton, New Jersey.

Kerr published ''The Lions of Marash'' in 1973. Some have deemed that book as "practically required reading for Armenians" since it is a firsthand account of the massacre of the Armenian population in Western Armenia.<ref name=":0" />

Kerr died in 1976. He was the father of Malcolm H. Kerr, former president of the American University of Beirut, and the grandfather of NBA player, general manager, broadcaster, and coach Steve Kerr.

==References== {{Reflist}}

==External links== *Google Books sample of Stanley Kerr's [https://books.google.com/books?id=eFln8mXSKwoC&q=the+lions+of+marash ''The Lions of Marash'']. *Kerr mentioned in [https://books.google.com/books?id=mh_kbQjMfgsC&dq=%22stanley+kerr%22+biography&pg=PA92 Google Books sample of "Starving Armenians" page 92.] *[http://zoryaninstitute.org/kerrarchive.html A selection of Stanley Kerr's papers relating to his work with the Near East Relief are held by the Zoryan Institute] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161107092635/http://zoryaninstitute.org/kerrarchive.html |date=2016-11-07 }}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kerr, Staney}} Category:1976 deaths Category:American expatriate academics Category:Academic staff of the American University of Beirut Category:Witnesses of the Armenian genocide Category:Recipients of the Order of Merit (Lebanon) Category:Knights of the National Order of the Cedar Category:20th-century American medical doctors Category:1894 births Category:American Presbyterian ministers