Donald Ransom Whitney was born Saturday, November 27, 1915 in East Cleveland, Ohio .
he died Thursday, August 16, 2007. his recorded age was 91.
he was a veteran .
WHITNEY Dr. D. Ransom Whitney. Born November 27, 1915, in Cleveland, Ohio, passed away August 16, 2007. Dr. Whitney was preceded in death by his parents Frank and Maude Whitney, his brothers and sisters, one granddaughter and one son-in-law. Mr. Whitney graduated from Oberlin College in 1936, obtained his MA at Princeton 1939 and his PhD in mathematics at Ohio State in1948. His OSU advisor and friend was Henry B. Mann and together they developed the Mann-Whitney U-Test, a non-parametric alternative to the standard two-sample test. Dr. Whitney was instrumental in developing the Statistics Laboratory at OSU and later became the first chair of the Statistics Department. As a young man, Mr. Whitney told his mother that his ambition was to be a retired mathematics professor, a goal he finally achieved in 1982. Mr. Whitney served in the U.S. Navy 1942-1945. While first in the Navy he taught celestial navigation at Princeton, was in pre-radar training at Bell Labs, and assigned to the USS Atlanta which went to the Pacific Theater and returned to the west coast in 1945. Dr. Whitney had a life long love of logical thinking, games, sports, traveling and gardening. He is survived by Marian, his wife of 68 years; 4 children, Marilyn Bos of Leesburg VA, Roberta (Jack) Jacobowitz of Williamston MI, Ronald (Joan) of Providence RI and Kenneth (Karen) of Delaware OH; 9 grandchildren and 3 great-grandchildren. A reception to meet with family and friends will be held at the OSU Faculty Club September 6, 2007 from 2-4 p.m. A celebration of Ransom's life will be held at 3 p.m., September 8, 2007 at Friendship Village of Dublin, 6000 Riverside Dr. In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the D. Ransom Whitney Endowed Fund in Statistics at Ohio State or The Charitable Endowment Fund of FDV. Arrangements by the NOVAK FUNERAL HOME.