Muriel Beadle, 78, a Chicago author and free-lance writer, died Feb. 13 in the Mt. San Antonio Gardens retirement community. She wrote to critical acclaim on such subjects as cats, genetics, life at the University of Chicago, the history of the Fortnightly, and early childhood. She was the widow of George W. Beadle, a former U. of C. president and a co-winner of the 1958 Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine.
“Muriel Beadle is an amusing, shrewd and observant writer,” according to a Tribune review of her 1972 book “Where Has All the Ivy Gone: A Memoir of University Life.”
The book, a reminiscence of the turbulent 1960s when her husband served as U. of C. president, was not easy to write. The reviewer commented, “What she has done with her professional writing skills is to give us a glimpse into the cauldron of high-level academic administration from 1961 to 1968 without the true pain of being scalded.”
Mrs. Beadle, a native of California, grew up in Morgan Park, graduating from Morgan Park High School. She received a bachelor’s degree Phi Beta Kappa from Pomona College. In the late 1930s, she worked as an advertising copywriter for Carson Pirie Scott & Co. From 1948 to 1958, she was a feature writer, fashion editor and woman’s editor for the Los Angeles Mirror-News.
She and her husband, a geneticist, co-wrote the 1966 book “The Language of Life.” In it, according to Tribune staff writer Ronald Kotulak, the two “surmounted the scholarly language barrier that has been the downfall of other authors. Each scientific word and concept has been pounded down into everyday language.”
Her other books were “These Ruins Are Inhabited,” a study of life at Oxford University, where her husband won the Nobel Prize; “The Fortnightly of Chicago: The City and Its Women 1873-1973;” and “The Cat: History, Biology and Behavior.”
Mrs. Beadle was active in the Hyde Park community and in open housing during the 1960s. She served as president of the Harper Court Foundation and worked to attract and retain artists and artisans in Hyde Park’s Harper Court development.
She was awarded an honorary doctorate by Mundelein College.
Survivors include a son, Redmond Barnett; and a brother.
