Dr. Earl Eldred

Dr. Earl Eldred passed away peacefully on March 17, 2017 at the age of 98. His strong intellect, love of adventure, sense of fairness, and offbeat sense of humor, will be sorely missed by all who knew him.
Born in Tacoma, Washington, in 1919, he was the only child of Stephen and Mollie Eldred. Raised during the Great Depression he excelled in school, and was the first in his family to attend college. He was admitted to the University of Washington, enrolled in the Reserve Officers Training Corps, and graduated with a BSc in Marine Biology. When World War II erupted, he served as 1st Lieutenant in the U.S. Army, as a Weather Officer.
While stationed in Seattle, he met Bergliot Stockland on a blind date. This was the beginning of a whirlwind romance that culminated in marriage for the rest of his life. Berg still tells stories about how handsome Earl was in uniform.
With the end of the war in sight, Earl was shipped over to Germany to become Infantry Unit Commander of a POW camp that contained captured German soldiers. As he had studied German in school, he also became the main translator in camp.
After the war, he attended Northwestern University, where he earned his Medical Degree. Research was his passion, and his work in neurophysiology led to his role as one of the founding professors of the new UCLA School of Medicine. Earl instructed the very first laboratory session of the first anatomy class in 1951. His tenure there was impressive: he taught gross anatomy to innumerable medical students, published nearly 100 research papers, and became a leading authority on the workings of muscle spindles. During his five decades at UCLA, his duties included being the Vice Chairman of the Anatomy department, and Head of the Willed-body program. He was a Fellow of the Nobel Institute of Neurophysiology, Markle Scholar, member of the World Brain Organization, American Association of Anatomists, Society of Neuroscience, and served on the Grants Board of the National Institutes of Health. Fittingly, UCLA traces its formation back to the founding of the campus in 1919—the same year Earl was born.
Earl was also a family man; he and Berg had three children. Always the adventurer, he encouraged and escorted his family on travels across the globe. A dedicated outdoorsman, he loved hiking and mountain climbing, summiting the likes of Mt. Whitney, Mt. Fujiyama, and Mt. Rainier. Fascinated by Arctic/Antarctic exploration, he fulfilled a bucket-list wish of visiting Antarctica at the age of 76.
Earl was always a keen advocate of physical fitness. He had been a college wrestler, and espoused the merits of swimming, weight lifting, and running. Around the age of 60, he began to undertake marathons, eventually completing eight of them. He lifted weights while watching TV, and as an octogenarian, drew admiring crowds in appreciation of his prowess at the gym.
Unfortunately, Earl suffered from the cruelty of Alzheimer's disease in his last few years and required assistance. Even that, however, did not stop him. Living at home with Berg through the end of 2016, he would still take extensive walks with Edwin, his devoted long-term caregiver, around Balboa Lake. But he broke his hip on New Year’s Day 2017, and never fully recovered.
Earl leaves his wife of 73 years, Berg, and their children, Stig, Dan, and Heidi. He also has three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests donations to support the UCLA Department of Neurobiology (http://giving.ucla.edu/neurobiology), or the Sierra Club (http://sierraclubfoundation.org)