Paul W. Gilles

Memorial services for Paul W. Gilles, 83, Lawrence, are pending and will be announced by Warren-McElwain Mortuary. Burial will be in Pioneer Cemetery.

Mr. Gilles died Thursday, Feb. 12, 2004, at the University of Kansas Hospital in Kansas City, Kan.

He was born Jan. 13, 1921, in Kansas City, Kan., the son of Arthur and Florence (Paul) Gilles. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in chemistry in 1943 from Kansas University, where he was a Summerfield Scholar and member of Phi Beta Kappa. He also was active in student co-ops and Sachem. He did graduate work in high temperature chemistry at the University of California at Berkeley, where he received his doctorate in 1947. Mr. Gilles worked on the Manhattan Project.

He became an assistant professor at KU in 1947 and retired as a distinguished professor in 1990. He was active in the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry and a member of the Lawrence Unitarian Fellowship.

He married Helen Martin on Dec. 22, 1944, in Paola. She survives, of the home.

Other survivors include a son, Timothy K., Brooklyn, N.Y.; two daughters, Rebecca Richardson, St. Paul, Minn., and Kathleen Seidel, Arlington, Va.; a brother, Don, Rockville, Md.; and nine grandchildren.

The family suggests memorials to the Paul & Helen Gilles Award in Physical Chemistry through the KU Endowment Association or to the Lawrence Unitarian Fellowship, sent in care of the mortuary.

E-mail condolences may be sent to info@warrenmcelwain.com, subject: Gilles.