Part 1. Peking and San Francisco, 1910 to 1934: a missionary family and the moons of Jupiter

Robert James Dobson sailed for China on September 19, 1910. He was a layman, a new missionary of the Methodist church sent out from Albion, Michigan, to Peking, and by 1913 he was on the faculty of the mission’s college there, teaching in its college of liberal arts and in its preparatory department. The college was called Peking University, and its president was the Rev. Hiram Harrison Lowry.55.Methodist Board reports; Methodist Year Book 1911; Who’s Who in American Methodism 1916, p. 130.record from the timeMethodist Board reports: Annual reports of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church, for the years 1910 to 1922.record from the timeMethodist Year Book 1911: The Methodist Year Book 1911, missionaries sent out or appointed on the field, November 1909 to October 1910.a later writerWho’s Who in American Methodism 1916: Who’s Who in American Methodism (1916), entry “Lowry, Rev. Hiram Harrison”, p. 130.

Lowry was an Ohio man who had gone out to China in 1867 and had been in Peking since 1869. He was superintendent of the Methodist mission in north China for 20 years and president of its college for 20, from 1894. The family remembered him as the founder of Peking University, and Dobson said so for decades. The records made in Lowry’s lifetime call him its president. Founder or president, the college was the Methodists’, and it is not the Peking University of today, which began as a state school in 1898.66.Peking Who’s Who; Who’s Who in American Methodism 1916, p. 130; Crater Lake interview, edited; Mayer 1980, p. 28; PATS talk 2008, at 00:38:41; Wikipedia, Lowry; Bakich 2014.record from the timePeking Who’s Who: The Peking Who’s Who, 1922 and 1924 editions.a later writerWho’s Who in American Methodism 1916: Who’s Who in American Methodism (1916), entry “Lowry, Rev. Hiram Harrison”, p. 130.his own accountCrater Lake interview, edited: F. Owen Hoffman, interview with John Dobson, 31 July 2004, Crater Lake Institute oral history, edited by Stephen R. Mark (December 2005).his own accountMayer 1980: Ben Mayer, “Astronomy on the Sidewalk” (interview with John Dobson), Astronomy, April 1980, pp. 24-28.his own accountPATS talk 2008: John Dobson, “Einstein’s Geometry”, talk at the Pacific Astronomy and Telescope Show, 14 September 2008 (recording).a later writerWikipedia, Lowry: “Hiram Harrison Lowry”, Wikipedia (revision of 2026).a later writerBakich 2014: Michael E. Bakich, “Astronomy popularizer John Dobson dies”, Astronomy.com, 16 January 2014.

His daughter Mabel was born in Peking, and as a girl in her teens she lived through the Boxer Rebellion of 1900 behind sandbags. Her son once told her that “it’s a shame the Chinese didn’t win that and throw the foreigners out.” The look on her face, he said, was funnier than he could tell, and he granted her the reason: nobody who has been through a war behind sandbags at that age is going to think the other side should have won. She grew up to be a musician, and she married Robert Dobson, probably in 1913; from that year the mission counted her a missionary too.77.Who’s Who in American Methodism 1916, p. 130; Crater Lake interview, edited; PATS talk 2008, at 00:38:45, 00:38:49, 00:38:55; Oregonian 2003; Methodist Board reports; Missions directory 1920-21. Recorded: “it’s a shame the Chinese didn’t…” (PATS talk 2008, 00:38:55).a later writerWho’s Who in American Methodism 1916: Who’s Who in American Methodism (1916), entry “Lowry, Rev. Hiram Harrison”, p. 130.his own accountCrater Lake interview, edited: F. Owen Hoffman, interview with John Dobson, 31 July 2004, Crater Lake Institute oral history, edited by Stephen R. Mark (December 2005).his own accountPATS talk 2008: John Dobson, “Einstein’s Geometry”, talk at the Pacific Astronomy and Telescope Show, 14 September 2008 (recording).a later writerOregonian 2003: Richard Hill, “Telescopic Visionary”, The Oregonian, April 2003.record from the timeMethodist Board reports: Annual reports of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church, for the years 1910 to 1922.record from the timeMissions directory 1920-21: Directory of Protestant Missions in China, 1920 and 1921 editions.

John was born in September 1915 and given his mother’s family name for a middle one. “Dobson is English for Son of Robert, and Lowry, my mother’s name, is Irish,” he explained. He lived in China until he was 12, he said, which is true from 1919 on. Most of his first four years were spent in America. By 1916 his father was on furlough and the family’s address was Parma, Michigan, and by 1917 it was Forest Hills, in Boston. There his father evidently taught biology at Northeastern College, and in 1919 he was at Harvard’s graduate school of applied biology.88.Methodist Board reports; Lowell centennial book, p. 113; England And Ireland 2002; Mayer 1980, p. 24; Chinese Recorder 1919; Northeastern catalogue 1918-19; Harvard Graduates’ Magazine 1919, p. 174.record from the timeMethodist Board reports: Annual reports of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church, for the years 1910 to 1922.a later writerLowell centennial book: Lowell High School, Red and White, Centennial Edition 1856-1956 (class lists and faculty rolls).his own accountEngland And Ireland 2002: John Dobson, “England And Ireland”, trip report, 2002, sidewalkastronomers.us.his own accountMayer 1980: Ben Mayer, “Astronomy on the Sidewalk” (interview with John Dobson), Astronomy, April 1980, pp. 24-28.record from the timeChinese Recorder 1919: The Chinese Recorder, October 1919, Missionary Journal, “Arrivals”.record from the timeNortheastern catalogue 1918-19: Northeastern College (Boston), catalogues for 1918-1919.record from the timeHarvard Graduates’ Magazine 1919: The Harvard Graduates’ Magazine, September 1919, “Bussey Institution - Graduate School of Applied Biology”.

Boston left him afraid of bullies all the time he was growing up, psychotically afraid, in his own word. What happened there is the earliest thing he told about his own life, and he remembered none of it. He was about 3, and the doctors expected him to lose his sight: a bigger child had got him on the ground and rubbed mud into his eyes, and it took a week, his mother said, to come out from behind them. In place of a memory there was a dream he used to have, in which he was blind and knew just how it was done.99.Memoir 3; Anecdotes.his own accountMemoir 3: John Dobson, “Memoir 3”, sidewalkastronomers.us (archived copy).his own accountAnecdotes: John Dobson, “Memories” (anecdotes), sidewalkastronomers.us (archived copy).

The right eye took the lasting damage. At about 90 he wrote that the eye did not get a satisfactory picture, “and my brain has had 88 years to get used to getting along without it.” The brain kept the eye, he added, to tell him how far away things were.1010.Anecdotes; Memoir 3.his own accountAnecdotes: John Dobson, “Memories” (anecdotes), sidewalkastronomers.us (archived copy).his own accountMemoir 3: John Dobson, “Memoir 3”, sidewalkastronomers.us (archived copy).

On August 24, 1919, his parents landed back in China, and John, presumably, with them, a few weeks short of 4. Their address now was the university itself, where his father taught biology and his grandfather, in his late seventies, was president emeritus. The old man died on January 13, 1924, in Peking, when John was 8, and the Dobsons lived on there for three more years.1111.Chinese Recorder 1919; Methodist Board reports; Peking University book 1921; Peking Who’s Who; Wikipedia, Lowry; Crater Lake interview, edited.record from the timeChinese Recorder 1919: The Chinese Recorder, October 1919, Missionary Journal, “Arrivals”.record from the timeMethodist Board reports: Annual reports of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church, for the years 1910 to 1922.record from the timePeking University book 1921: A promotional volume for Peking University with its staff lists for 1920-21 (1921; Cornell University Library copy, title supplied by the cataloguer).record from the timePeking Who’s Who: The Peking Who’s Who, 1922 and 1924 editions.a later writerWikipedia, Lowry: “Hiram Harrison Lowry”, Wikipedia (revision of 2026).his own accountCrater Lake interview, edited: F. Owen Hoffman, interview with John Dobson, 31 July 2004, Crater Lake Institute oral history, edited by Stephen R. Mark (December 2005).

He was one of four sons. His club’s biography names the other three, Ernest, Lowry and Harrison, and Ernest was probably the older brother of his stories. John played with that brother’s friends and had to keep up, which gave him a good pair of legs. His playmates all counted on him to be fair, he wrote, and two of them in a quarrel would come to him and let him decide it.1212.Oregonian 2003; Club biography; Lowell centennial book, p. 107; Memoir 3.a later writerOregonian 2003: Richard Hill, “Telescopic Visionary”, The Oregonian, April 2003.a later writerClub biography: “John Dobson: A Brief Biography”, sidewalkastronomers.us (archived copy).a later writerLowell centennial book: Lowell High School, Red and White, Centennial Edition 1856-1956 (class lists and faculty rolls).his own accountMemoir 3: John Dobson, “Memoir 3”, sidewalkastronomers.us (archived copy).

The boys went to the Peking American School until their parents, who did not like what was taught there, opened a school of their own at home. Both were teachers, and he gave them the credit for a thorough grounding. “I was raised by a zoologist,” he wrote, by which he meant his father.1313.Crater Lake interview, edited; Crater Lake interview, transcript; Mayer 1980, p. 28; Pictures (draft).his own accountCrater Lake interview, edited: F. Owen Hoffman, interview with John Dobson, 31 July 2004, Crater Lake Institute oral history, edited by Stephen R. Mark (December 2005).his own accountCrater Lake interview, transcript: F. Owen Hoffman’s own transcript of the same 31 July 2004 interview, posted before the edit.his own accountMayer 1980: Ben Mayer, “Astronomy on the Sidewalk” (interview with John Dobson), Astronomy, April 1980, pp. 24-28.his own accountPictures (draft): John Dobson, “Pictures (draft)”, essay of the 1990s, sidewalkastronomers.us (archived copy).

“I used to ask myself when I was a little kid, how come there is anything at all?” he once said. Brett Campbell wrote that to the boy in Peking the sky was an ocean, and that he would lie on his back above it and wonder how far down he would go if gravity let him loose.1414.The Telescope Man, at 00:03:06; Campbell 2004. Recorded: “I used to ask myself when…” (The Telescope Man, 00:03:06).his own accountThe Telescope Man: “JD: The Telescope Man”, documentary short, undated (recording).a later writerCampbell 2004: Brett Campbell, “The Father of Street-Corner Stargazing”, Wall Street Journal, 1 September 2004, p. D10.

Long afterward he described the universe he had been given as a boy. “See, when I was a kid, the universe didn’t look like this at all,” he said. “We only knew that we had one galaxy, our own galaxy.” The others were still called spiral nebulae. Nearly the whole academic world, he said, assumed that Earth was the only planet anything could live on, and the Sun was thought peculiar in having planets. “Nobody when I was a kid thought the universe was made out of hydrogen,” he told a class; it was assumed to be iron and rock. And it went without saying, he said, that the chemical makeup of the universe had been handed out at the creation, if there had been one, or had always been there, if there was an always. “And I’ve watched them all change, you see,” he told them, and they, being for the most part too young to have seen any of it, would have to read about it in books.1515.The Astronomers 1991, at 00:31:58; Cosmology class 8, at 00:58:29, 00:59:29; History 1803. Recorded: “See, when I was a kid…” (The Astronomers 1991, 00:31:58). Recorded: “We only knew that we had…” (The Astronomers 1991, 00:31:58). Recorded: “Nobody when I was a kid…” (Cosmology class 8, 00:58:29). Recorded: “And I’ve watched them all change…” (Cosmology class 8, 00:59:29).his own accountThe Astronomers 1991: The Astronomers (KCET/PBS, 1991), episode 1, “Where Is the Rest of the Universe?” (recording).his own accountCosmology class 8: John Dobson, cosmology class 8, audio recording, about 1994 (recording).his own accountHistory 1803: John Dobson, “History 1803”, signed Hollywood, 2004, sidewalkastronomers.us.

In 1927 the family left China, “because of political unrest,” as he put it, and sailed for San Francisco. John was 12.1616.Crater Lake interview, edited; Space.com 2000; PATS talk 2008, at 00:37:59.his own accountCrater Lake interview, edited: F. Owen Hoffman, interview with John Dobson, 31 July 2004, Crater Lake Institute oral history, edited by Stephen R. Mark (December 2005).his own accountSpace.com 2000: Space.com profile of John Dobson, May 2000 (reprinted on sidewalkastronomers.us).his own accountPATS talk 2008: John Dobson, “Einstein’s Geometry”, talk at the Pacific Astronomy and Telescope Show, 14 September 2008 (recording).

It was lack of money that kept them in San Francisco, David Levy wrote: they had landed there meaning to go on somewhere else. Dobson, he added, was proud of that for the rest of his life. By 1929 the family was living on 37th Avenue, out in the Sunset District, and his father was teaching in the public schools. By the school’s centennial roll his father taught at Lowell High School from 1928 to 1951.1717.Levy 1995; SF directories; Lowell centennial book, p. 91.a later writerLevy 1995: David H. Levy, “Walden of the Sky”, Sky & Telescope, September 1995, p. 84.record from the timeSF directories: Polk’s Crocker-Langley San Francisco City Directory (R. L. Polk), yearly volumes, 1929 to 1966.a later writerLowell centennial book: Lowell High School, Red and White, Centennial Edition 1856-1956 (class lists and faculty rolls).

At 12 John was put in sixth grade. He was shy, by his own guess more so than any other child there, and he had been afraid of bullies since Boston. The school had three. What freed him was a foot race in the schoolyard, in which he tied the fastest boy in the school, the one child the three treated with respect. For the rest of grade school, he wrote, they “took the dust of my feet,” and he thought that hilarious.1818.PATS talk 2008, at 00:37:59; Memoir 3.his own accountPATS talk 2008: John Dobson, “Einstein’s Geometry”, talk at the Pacific Astronomy and Telescope Show, 14 September 2008 (recording).his own accountMemoir 3: John Dobson, “Memoir 3”, sidewalkastronomers.us (archived copy).

He had no telescope of his own, and at 13, he said, he was not doing much astronomy. But the refractor had crossed the Pacific with the family, and for a project in grade school, probably that year, he looked at Jupiter through it night after night and then drew what he saw. “They were really big pictures,” he said: Jupiter and its moons in a light color on sheets of dark blue paper, 2 feet high and 18 inches across, the moons as they stood on one night and then another.1919.PATS talk 2008, at 00:37:11, 00:37:25, 00:37:27, 00:37:43; Mayer 1980, p. 24; LA Times 2005; Crater Lake interview, edited.his own accountPATS talk 2008: John Dobson, “Einstein’s Geometry”, talk at the Pacific Astronomy and Telescope Show, 14 September 2008 (recording).his own accountMayer 1980: Ben Mayer, “Astronomy on the Sidewalk” (interview with John Dobson), Astronomy, April 1980, pp. 24-28.a later writerLA Times 2005: Hugo Martin, “Astronomer a star in his profession”, Los Angeles Times, 2005.his own accountCrater Lake interview, edited: F. Owen Hoffman, interview with John Dobson, 31 July 2004, Crater Lake Institute oral history, edited by Stephen R. Mark (December 2005).

His legs were better than his eyes. As a Boy Scout he nearly won the 220 in a track meet at Kezar Stadium, and what lost it was the tape, which he could not see until he was about 50 yards from it. Not knowing where the race ended, he had kept between the leader and the pack, and by then the leader was well out in front. He went after him with the crowd up on the seats screaming, and with 2 more feet of track, he wrote, he would have won.2020.Memoir 3.his own accountMemoir 3: John Dobson, “Memoir 3”, sidewalkastronomers.us (archived copy).

From grade school he went on to Lowell, a college-preparatory high school, where his father was by then teaching physiology and public health. School as such did not inspire him. The exception, at some point in his schooling, was Euclid’s geometry: “I was galvanized by it,” he wrote, and his teachers would call on him only when the rest of the class had no answer. By his own account he had been fascinated by Einstein and gravity since he was a child in Peking, and all through his youth relativity was handed to him as a great mystery, with the square root of minus one in every equation.2121.Crater Lake interview, edited; American Journal of Public Health 1931; Lowell yearbooks 1932, 1938; Space.com 2000; Cosmological Fossils; Crater Lake interview, transcript.his own accountCrater Lake interview, edited: F. Owen Hoffman, interview with John Dobson, 31 July 2004, Crater Lake Institute oral history, edited by Stephen R. Mark (December 2005).record from the timeAmerican Journal of Public Health 1931: American Journal of Public Health, vol. 21 no. 1 (January 1931), “New Members”.record from the timeLowell yearbooks 1932, 1938: Lowell High School, Red and White, June 1932 and Spring 1938.his own accountSpace.com 2000: Space.com profile of John Dobson, May 2000 (reprinted on sidewalkastronomers.us).his own accountCosmological Fossils: John Dobson, “Cosmological Fossils”, undated essay, sidewalkastronomers.us (archived copy).his own accountCrater Lake interview, transcript: F. Owen Hoffman’s own transcript of the same 31 July 2004 interview, posted before the edit.

In high school he and his older brother formed a club with five close friends, over dinner in Chinatown: two boys who were Jewish, a brother and sister who were Japanese, and a girl who was Chinese. The Dobsons were the two born in China. They named the club Beta Pi, for Bridge the Pacific. “I apologize now for all of us,” he wrote more than 70 years later. The apology was for the restaurant’s red napkins, which they had covered with their names that night and carried off. He wrote a song in those days, too, a Hymn to the Pacific that asks the ocean itself to carry peace to all its shores. Of the club’s purpose the old man wrote, “I’m at it still.”2222.Memoir 3.his own accountMemoir 3: John Dobson, “Memoir 3”, sidewalkastronomers.us (archived copy).

He was an atheist by then. He had been raised in a Methodist mission, and what he could not get past, as he told it, was being taught two things at once: to do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and that a boy who is not good goes to hell and stays there. The two notions could not come from the same being, he decided: “They must be spoofing us.” So he became “a belligerent atheist”, and he would take on anybody who brought the subject up.2323.A Sidewalk Astronomer, at 00:18:44, 00:19:12; Mayer 1980, p. 24; Space.com 2000.his own accountA Sidewalk Astronomer: A Sidewalk Astronomer (film, dir. Jeffrey Fox Jacobs, 2005), from the distributor’s published transcript (paraphrased).his own accountMayer 1980: Ben Mayer, “Astronomy on the Sidewalk” (interview with John Dobson), Astronomy, April 1980, pp. 24-28.his own accountSpace.com 2000: Space.com profile of John Dobson, May 2000 (reprinted on sidewalkastronomers.us).

He left Lowell High School with the Class of June 1934, at 18. By his own account he was still an atheist, and still a belligerent one, in February 1937, when he first heard a swami named Ashokananda speak.2424.Lowell centennial book, p. 113; Crater Lake interview, edited.a later writerLowell centennial book: Lowell High School, Red and White, Centennial Edition 1856-1956 (class lists and faculty rolls).his own accountCrater Lake interview, edited: F. Owen Hoffman, interview with John Dobson, 31 July 2004, Crater Lake Institute oral history, edited by Stephen R. Mark (December 2005).

1. The birthday. The Chinese Recorder’s line is the only record from the time. It names neither the child nor the place; that the son is John is our reading, and we know of no other Dobson son born that year. He gave September 14, as does every later writer we have who prints a day. A consular report of the birth or a passport application could settle it; we have seen neither.2525.Chinese Recorder 1915, p. 653; Crater Lake interview, transcript; Crater Lake interview, edited; Levy 1995; Film press biography; Club biography; LA Times obituary 2014; NYT obituary 2014; Bakich 2014; Space.com obituary 2014; Astronomie Heute 2005, p. 3.record from the timeChinese Recorder 1915: The Chinese Recorder, vol. 46 no. 10 (October 1915), Missionary Journal, “Births”, p. 653.his own accountCrater Lake interview, transcript: F. Owen Hoffman’s own transcript of the same 31 July 2004 interview, posted before the edit.his own accountCrater Lake interview, edited: F. Owen Hoffman, interview with John Dobson, 31 July 2004, Crater Lake Institute oral history, edited by Stephen R. Mark (December 2005).a later writerLevy 1995: David H. Levy, “Walden of the Sky”, Sky & Telescope, September 1995, p. 84.a later writerFilm press biography: Press biography for the film A Sidewalk Astronomer (2005), telescopepictures.com.a later writerClub biography: “John Dobson: A Brief Biography”, sidewalkastronomers.us (archived copy).a later writerLA Times obituary 2014: Elaine Woo, obituary of John Dobson, Los Angeles Times, January 2014.a later writerNYT obituary 2014: Douglas Martin, obituary of John Dobson, New York Times News Service, January 2014.a later writerBakich 2014: Michael E. Bakich, “Astronomy popularizer John Dobson dies”, Astronomy.com, 16 January 2014.a later writerSpace.com obituary 2014: Mark Thompson, obituary of John Dobson, Space.com, January 2014.record from the timeAstronomie Heute 2005: Astronomie Heute, October 2005: editorial, p. 3, and Stefan Seip, “Der Grandseigneur der Sterngucker”, pp. 52-55 (in German).

2. China until he was twelve. In 1980 he said he “lived there till I was twelve”; the mission’s reports put the family in America from 1916. The list of arrivals for August 24, 1919, names his parents and no children; that he came with them is our reading. So is the Boston teacher: Northeastern College’s catalogue for 1918-19 has a professor of biology named Robert J. Dobson, A.M.2626.Mayer 1980, p. 24; Methodist Board reports; Chinese Recorder 1919; Northeastern catalogue 1918-19.his own accountMayer 1980: Ben Mayer, “Astronomy on the Sidewalk” (interview with John Dobson), Astronomy, April 1980, pp. 24-28.record from the timeMethodist Board reports: Annual reports of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church, for the years 1910 to 1922.record from the timeChinese Recorder 1919: The Chinese Recorder, October 1919, Missionary Journal, “Arrivals”.record from the timeNortheastern catalogue 1918-19: Northeastern College (Boston), catalogues for 1918-1919.

3. Peking, 1922 to 1927. The Board’s yearly reports list the Dobsons at Peking through 1921 and in no year from 1922 to 1927. The Peking Who’s Who of 1922 has Prof. R. J. Dobson and his wife in the Methodist mission, and the 1924 edition has him at Peking University and her with the mission. Nothing we have read says why they drop out of the reports, or who paid him in those years. For the leaving, a Los Angeles Times profile names Chiang Kai-shek’s drive to unify the country against its warlords, and Space.com says violence; no record we hold connects it to any one event.2727.Methodist Board reports; Peking Who’s Who; Crater Lake interview, edited; LA Times 2005; Space.com 2000.record from the timeMethodist Board reports: Annual reports of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church, for the years 1910 to 1922.record from the timePeking Who’s Who: The Peking Who’s Who, 1922 and 1924 editions.his own accountCrater Lake interview, edited: F. Owen Hoffman, interview with John Dobson, 31 July 2004, Crater Lake Institute oral history, edited by Stephen R. Mark (December 2005).a later writerLA Times 2005: Hugo Martin, “Astronomer a star in his profession”, Los Angeles Times, 2005.his own accountSpace.com 2000: Space.com profile of John Dobson, May 2000 (reprinted on sidewalkastronomers.us).

4. San Francisco. He was 12 when they came, he said, which puts the arrival after his September birthday; we have found no passenger list. The earliest city directory we could read is 1929’s, with the family at 1235 37th Avenue; the 1934 volume has 1019 Ashbury Street. His club’s biography has his father at Lowell from 1927 until the 1950s, the school’s centennial book, compiled in 1956, from 1928 to 1951. Our earliest record from the time with his father at Lowell is from January 1931. Space.com has John growing up poor; no record we hold speaks to money.2828.PATS talk 2008, at 00:37:59; SF directories; Club biography; Lowell centennial book, p. 91; American Journal of Public Health 1931; Lowell yearbooks 1932, 1938; Space.com 2000.his own accountPATS talk 2008: John Dobson, “Einstein’s Geometry”, talk at the Pacific Astronomy and Telescope Show, 14 September 2008 (recording).record from the timeSF directories: Polk’s Crocker-Langley San Francisco City Directory (R. L. Polk), yearly volumes, 1929 to 1966.a later writerClub biography: “John Dobson: A Brief Biography”, sidewalkastronomers.us (archived copy).a later writerLowell centennial book: Lowell High School, Red and White, Centennial Edition 1856-1956 (class lists and faculty rolls).record from the timeAmerican Journal of Public Health 1931: American Journal of Public Health, vol. 21 no. 1 (January 1931), “New Members”.record from the timeLowell yearbooks 1932, 1938: Lowell High School, Red and White, June 1932 and Spring 1938.his own accountSpace.com 2000: Space.com profile of John Dobson, May 2000 (reprinted on sidewalkastronomers.us).

5. His grandfather and Peking University. Dobson said in 1980, 2004 and 2008 that his mother’s father founded Peking University. Six later writers say so too, and Astronomy magazine’s obituary adds “in 1898”, the founding year of the state’s Imperial University of Peking, which is today’s Peking University. Records from Lowry’s lifetime say president: The Peking Who’s Who of 1922 has “President of Peking University 20 years”. None that we have read says founder, which does not rule it out, and none says who did found the college. Two things rest on Wikipedia alone: that Lowry’s college was Huiwen University, later part of Yenching University, and the day he died, which the article takes from a consular report we have not seen.2929.Mayer 1980, p. 28; Crater Lake interview, edited; PATS talk 2008, at 00:38:41; Film press biography; Club biography; Moser 1989, pp. 102-110; Space.com 2000; Perlman 2000; LA Times 2005; Bakich 2014; Who’s Who in American Methodism 1916, p. 130; Peking Who’s Who; Peking University book 1921; Wikipedia, Lowry.his own accountMayer 1980: Ben Mayer, “Astronomy on the Sidewalk” (interview with John Dobson), Astronomy, April 1980, pp. 24-28.his own accountCrater Lake interview, edited: F. Owen Hoffman, interview with John Dobson, 31 July 2004, Crater Lake Institute oral history, edited by Stephen R. Mark (December 2005).his own accountPATS talk 2008: John Dobson, “Einstein’s Geometry”, talk at the Pacific Astronomy and Telescope Show, 14 September 2008 (recording).a later writerFilm press biography: Press biography for the film A Sidewalk Astronomer (2005), telescopepictures.com.a later writerClub biography: “John Dobson: A Brief Biography”, sidewalkastronomers.us (archived copy).a later writerMoser 1989: Don Moser, “John Dobson, the celestial Pied Piper”, Smithsonian, April 1989, pp. 102-110.his own accountSpace.com 2000: Space.com profile of John Dobson, May 2000 (reprinted on sidewalkastronomers.us).a later writerPerlman 2000: David Perlman, “A Star Among Astronomers”, San Francisco Chronicle, about December 2000 (reprinted on sidewalkastronomers.us).a later writerLA Times 2005: Hugo Martin, “Astronomer a star in his profession”, Los Angeles Times, 2005.a later writerBakich 2014: Michael E. Bakich, “Astronomy popularizer John Dobson dies”, Astronomy.com, 16 January 2014.a later writerWho’s Who in American Methodism 1916: Who’s Who in American Methodism (1916), entry “Lowry, Rev. Hiram Harrison”, p. 130.record from the timePeking Who’s Who: The Peking Who’s Who, 1922 and 1924 editions.record from the timePeking University book 1921: A promotional volume for Peking University with its staff lists for 1920-21 (1921; Cornell University Library copy, title supplied by the cataloguer).a later writerWikipedia, Lowry: “Hiram Harrison Lowry”, Wikipedia (revision of 2026).

6. His parents and his brothers. Profiles call his father a professor of zoology and his mother a musician; obituaries call them missionaries. The records bear out all of it; their word for his father’s subject is biology. The mission’s list for 1912 has Robert Dobson with no wife beside him, and its roll counts Mabel a missionary from 1913, which we read as the year they married. A 1940 church weekly has Mrs. R. J. Dobson, his mother by our reading, accompanying a violinist; her 1949 post with San Francisco’s music teachers we know only as a search snippet. His 2004 interview has “my brothers” in the transcript and “my brother” in the edited text. Lowell’s class lists have an Ernest Dobson in June 1933 and a Harrison Lowry Dobson in June 1941, and the 1938 directory a Robert L. Dobson in the family’s house. That they are his brothers, and Ernest the older one of the memoir, is our reading; no record says so.3030.Oregonian 2003; LA Times 2005; Perlman 2000; NYT obituary 2014; SF Chronicle obituary 2014; Methodist Board reports; Peking University book 1921; Northeastern catalogue 1918-19; Mayer 1980, p. 28; Missions directory 1920-21; Christian Leader 1940, pp. 638-639; Music teachers’ bulletin 1949; Crater Lake interview, transcript; Crater Lake interview, edited; Club biography; Lowell centennial book, p. 107; Lowell yearbook 1941; SF directories; Memoir 3.a later writerOregonian 2003: Richard Hill, “Telescopic Visionary”, The Oregonian, April 2003.a later writerLA Times 2005: Hugo Martin, “Astronomer a star in his profession”, Los Angeles Times, 2005.a later writerPerlman 2000: David Perlman, “A Star Among Astronomers”, San Francisco Chronicle, about December 2000 (reprinted on sidewalkastronomers.us).a later writerNYT obituary 2014: Douglas Martin, obituary of John Dobson, New York Times News Service, January 2014.a later writerSF Chronicle obituary 2014: David Perlman, obituary of John Dobson, San Francisco Chronicle (SFGate), January 2014.record from the timeMethodist Board reports: Annual reports of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Methodist Episcopal Church, for the years 1910 to 1922.record from the timePeking University book 1921: A promotional volume for Peking University with its staff lists for 1920-21 (1921; Cornell University Library copy, title supplied by the cataloguer).record from the timeNortheastern catalogue 1918-19: Northeastern College (Boston), catalogues for 1918-1919.his own accountMayer 1980: Ben Mayer, “Astronomy on the Sidewalk” (interview with John Dobson), Astronomy, April 1980, pp. 24-28.record from the timeMissions directory 1920-21: Directory of Protestant Missions in China, 1920 and 1921 editions.record from the timeChristian Leader 1940: Helen Benner, “Asilomar Leadership Training Conference”, The Christian Leader, vol. 122 no. 27 (6 July 1940), pp. 638-639.record from the timeMusic teachers’ bulletin 1949: Bulletin of the Music Teachers National Association, vol. 14 no. 3 (1949); read as a search snippet only.his own accountCrater Lake interview, transcript: F. Owen Hoffman’s own transcript of the same 31 July 2004 interview, posted before the edit.his own accountCrater Lake interview, edited: F. Owen Hoffman, interview with John Dobson, 31 July 2004, Crater Lake Institute oral history, edited by Stephen R. Mark (December 2005).a later writerClub biography: “John Dobson: A Brief Biography”, sidewalkastronomers.us (archived copy).a later writerLowell centennial book: Lowell High School, Red and White, Centennial Edition 1856-1956 (class lists and faculty rolls).record from the timeLowell yearbook 1941: Lowell High School, Red and White, Spring 1941.record from the timeSF directories: Polk’s Crocker-Langley San Francisco City Directory (R. L. Polk), yearly volumes, 1929 to 1966.his own accountMemoir 3: John Dobson, “Memoir 3”, sidewalkastronomers.us (archived copy).

7. His schooling. Levy has his parents giving the children most of their lessons near Golden Gate Park, and Rosemary Sullivant has “mostly home schooling”. His own account puts the school at home in Peking, and grade school and Lowell in San Francisco. The class list with his name was printed 22 years after the class, and a search of the June 1932 yearbook’s scanned text finds his father and not him.3131.Levy 1995; Sullivant 2001, p. 71; Crater Lake interview, edited; Lowell centennial book, p. 113; Lowell yearbooks 1932, 1938.a later writerLevy 1995: David H. Levy, “Walden of the Sky”, Sky & Telescope, September 1995, p. 84.a later writerSullivant 2001: Rosemary Sullivant, “On the Road with John Dobson”, Astronomy, September 2001.his own accountCrater Lake interview, edited: F. Owen Hoffman, interview with John Dobson, 31 July 2004, Crater Lake Institute oral history, edited by Stephen R. Mark (December 2005).a later writerLowell centennial book: Lowell High School, Red and White, Centennial Edition 1856-1956 (class lists and faculty rolls).record from the timeLowell yearbooks 1932, 1938: Lowell High School, Red and White, June 1932 and Spring 1938.

8. The telescope, the eye and the recordings. How much astronomy the boy did depends on the telling: not much in China beyond the moons of Jupiter, he said in 1980; a lot, in 2003; not much at 13, in 2008. No telling we have says what became of the refractor or the drawings, whether he spoke Chinese, or what the bad eye meant at an eyepiece. The recordings are paraphrased from machine transcripts, except the words quoted, which several speech-recognition programs heard alike; none has been checked by ear.3232.Mayer 1980, p. 24; Oregonian 2003; PATS talk 2008, at 00:37:11, 00:23:49, 00:23:53, 00:37:19, 00:37:25, 00:37:27, 00:37:43, 00:37:59, 00:38:27, 00:38:41, 00:38:45, 00:38:49, 00:38:55; Anecdotes; The Telescope Man, at 00:03:06; A Sidewalk Astronomer, at 00:18:44, 00:19:12; The Astronomers 1991, at 00:31:58; Cosmology class 8, at 00:58:29, 00:59:29.his own accountMayer 1980: Ben Mayer, “Astronomy on the Sidewalk” (interview with John Dobson), Astronomy, April 1980, pp. 24-28.a later writerOregonian 2003: Richard Hill, “Telescopic Visionary”, The Oregonian, April 2003.his own accountPATS talk 2008: John Dobson, “Einstein’s Geometry”, talk at the Pacific Astronomy and Telescope Show, 14 September 2008 (recording).his own accountAnecdotes: John Dobson, “Memories” (anecdotes), sidewalkastronomers.us (archived copy).his own accountThe Telescope Man: “JD: The Telescope Man”, documentary short, undated (recording).his own accountA Sidewalk Astronomer: A Sidewalk Astronomer (film, dir. Jeffrey Fox Jacobs, 2005), from the distributor’s published transcript (paraphrased).his own accountThe Astronomers 1991: The Astronomers (KCET/PBS, 1991), episode 1, “Where Is the Rest of the Universe?” (recording).his own accountCosmology class 8: John Dobson, cosmology class 8, audio recording, about 1994 (recording).