Lucy B. McCrone

Lucy B. McCrone, 87, cofounder of McCrone Research Institute in Chicago, died on Feb. 10 from complications of pancreatic cancer.

Born in Buffalo, McCrone received a B.A. in chemistry from Wellesley College in 1945. She then went to work as an analytical chemist at Arthur D. Little in Cambridge, Mass. There she met her future husband, Walter C. McCrone, who was visiting as a consultant. After they married in 1957, she moved to Chicago to work as a chemical microscopist for Walter C. McCrone Associates.

In 1960, she and her husband cofounded McCrone Research Institute, a not-for-profit teaching and research organization, where she went to work full-time after leaving McCrone Associates in 1984. At the institute, she coauthored the polarized light microscopy course manual and served as associate editor of The Microscope. McCrone was an emerita member of ACS, joining in 1946.

With a passion for microscopes and microscopy education, McCrone worked at the institute seven days a week until a few months before her death.

McCrone’s husband predeceased her. She is survived by a sister, Mary Blaisdell, and a nephew, John Blaisdell.