Willier, Benjamin Harrison (02 November 1890–03 December 1972), embryologist and educator, was born near Weston, Wood County, Ohio, the son of David Willier, a farmer and banker, and Mary Alice Rickard. His childhood and early experiences were those of a country boy in the fundamentalist society of mid-America. He entered the College of Wooster in Ohio in 1912 and graduated with highest honors in biology in 1915. He taught biology for one year at Wooster before beginning graduate research in the Department of Zoology at the University of Chicago in 1916. His academic work was interrupted in 1918 by a brief period of military service in Washington, D.C. He returned to Chicago in 1919 and married Helen Beatrice Shipman, a teacher and his former college biology laboratory partner; they had two children. He completed his graduate research at the university under the direction of zoologist ...
