Lincoln Pierson Brower ’53

In January 1977, Linc was a member of the second scientific group to explore the overwintering sites of the monarch butterfly high in the mountains of central Mexico. What he saw changed his life and may have made more of a lasting difference in the world than any of the rest of us can claim.

Linc became a world-class entomologist with a doctorate from Yale and memberships in dozens of scientific societies, and distinguished professorships at Amherst, the University of Florida, and Sweet Briar. After the trip to Mexico, he became the leading advocate of the effort to preserve one of America’s best-known butterflies. The monarch butterfly depends on a threatened winter sanctuary in Mexico and the once-common milkweed plant in the eastern United States. Linc worked to preserve both and managed to get attention for his concerns. Former President Jimmy Carter was one of many whose attention Linc gained and who traveled with him to Mexico to see the problem firsthand. “To me,” Linc said, “the monarch is a treasure like a great piece of art. We need to develop a cultural appreciation of wildlife that’s equivalent to art and music.”

“His prodigious and pivotal contributions to biology were exceeded only by his humility,” said one colleague. “In fact, I knew him for two to three years before I realized that he was the Lincoln Brower who had authored all those amazing papers that I read as a student! He was simply too warm, too generous, too gregarious, and too thoughtful to be that famous!”

Not surprisingly, Linc majored in biology at Princeton. He was a member of Terrace Club and the Lepidopterists Society.

He died July 17, 2018, at his home in Nelson County, Va., after an extended illness. He is survived by his third wife, Linda Fink; two children; and two grandchildren.