Biography
Sumner graduated from Harvard University with a bachelor's degree in 1910 where he was acquainted with prominent chemists Roger Adams, Farrington Daniels, Frank C. Whitmore, James Bryant Conant and Charles Loring Jackson. In 1912, he went to study biochemistry in Harvard Medical School and obtained his Ph.D. degree in 1914 with Otto Folin. He then worked as Assistant Professor of Biochemistry at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY.
Sumner married Cid Ricketts (born Bertha Louise Ricketts in Brookhaven, Mississippi) when she attended medical school at Cornell. They married on July 10, 1915 and had four children. They were divorced in 1930, but she kept her married name. Cid Ricketts Sumner went on to become an author, writing books that included Tammy Tell Me True, which was made into the movie Tammy and the Bachelor, and Quality, which became the movie Pinky. Cid Ricketts Sumner was murdered by their grandson, John R. Cutler, in 1970.
Read more about this topic: James B. Sumner
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