Paul Scherer Dies; Father Headed Caltech

Paul Scherer, whose marriage in 1918 united two of the nation’s most prominent academic families, died last Thursday, slightly more than two months after his wife.

Scherer, whose father was the first president of Throop Polytechnic Institute (now Caltech) in Pasadena and whose father-in-law, astronomer George E. Hale, developed the Hale and Mt. Palomar observatories in Southern California, was 88.

He died in Florence, Ore., where he and his wife, Margaret, had been fruit growers. Scherer, a former director of research for AiResearch Manufacturing Co. of Los Angeles and executive officer of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, held several patents in the field of cold storage refrigeration as an outgrowth of problems he encountered in packing his crops.

He was a naval officer in World War I who attended Caltech before that war. His father and father-in-law first met on board ship while both men were en route to Scotland to see Andrew Carnegie, whose financial help they were seeking. James Scherer was then president of Newberry College in South Carolina and Hale persuaded him to take over Throop, at that time in its infancy.

Paul Scherer’s survivors include six children, 15 grandchildren and 18 great-grandchildren. The family suggests contributions to a Scherer-Hale Memorial at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, 91125.