Edrie Dale Trout was born November 3, 1902, on a farm outside of Franklin, Indiana. He graduated from the Consolidated Country School, then went on to obtain a degree in physics from Franklin College. For a time he taught college in Charleston, Illinois, before he went to work for the x-ray Division of General Electric Company, serving during the war years by training military technicians in the use of x-ray technology for intelligence purposes. He wrote a textbook on x-ray technology, which he used in training sessions at hospitals. He worked as a liaison between the laboratory scientists who developed the new technology and the doctors who were responsible for using it.
Thomasina Watson was born January 19, 1912, at Walton-on-Thames in England, the daughter of William and Thomasina Ferguson Watson. She came to America as a young child and settled in Hastings, Nebraska, with her family. She attended local schools, graduating from Hastings High School in 1928. Following high school, she attended Hastings College, graduating in 1932. She studied x-ray technology at Winonia, Wisconsin, and returned to Hastings to work as an x-ray technician at Mary Lanning Hospital. She married Detlar Stitt in 1934, and they had two sons prior to divorcing.
In May 1946, Dale married Thomasina. After many years of working most of his weeks on the road, Dale elected to take early retirement from General Electric. Dale and Thomasina attended a meeting of the Rocky Mountain Radiological Society in Denver and there met with an old acquaintance, Benjamin Goldberg, who had moved to Corvallis with the Army to take charge of the X-Ray Department at Camp Adair. After Dr. Goldberg returned from Europe, he gave up his practice in Chicago and opened his office in Corvallis. Dr. Goldberg was so enthusiastic about Oregon and Corvallis that Dale and Thomasina decided to look it over when they came to Oregon on business later that year. It wasn’t long before they arrived in Corvallis with two cars, two dogs, all their furnishings, and no home. They stayed at the Town House until they found their home at the edge of the Country Club golf course. Dale joined the faculty at Oregon State College as a professor of radiological physics.
Dale died unexpectedly February 2, 1977. “He always had so many projects going in connection with his work,” Thomasina recalled. “He was still very vital and active, always looking forward to work in progress.” He was an active scholar, and his technological advances earned him a gold medal award from the American Radiological Society, awarded posthumously in 1977.
Thomasina passed away on April 7, 1994, at the age of eighty-two. Her two sons, the Reverend David Stitt and Thomas Stitt, brought five grandchildren into the world. Thomasina was a member of Hastings College Alumni, OSU President’s Club, Good Samaritan Episcopal Church, and Good Samaritan Hospital Auxiliary. She enjoyed reading, writing, playing bridge, sketching, and writing poetry.
The Trout Scholarship is awarded to Benton County high school graduates who have excelled in academics and school activities or athletics.