Baby’s first crawl. Baby’s first steps. Baby’s first time collecting a sparrow’s egg. Wait, what? As a working couple with ailing parents, Smithsonian entomologist Doris Holmes Blake and USDA botanist Sidney Fay Blake were often separated, and took turns caring for and providing updates about their daughter, Doris Sidney Blake. In one sweet note, Sidney Blake wrote to his wife, visiting her parents in Massachusetts, that their daughter was in “fine shape,” had taken to curling his hair with a stick, and found her very first sparrow’s egg. You can almost feel him glowing with pride as he explained that “she didn’t even dent it.” Join a group of volunpeers in transcribing this project and get a glimpse into the life of a couple of scientists and their family in the interwar period.
Baby’s first crawl. Baby’s first steps. Baby’s first time collecting a sparrow’s egg. Wait, what? As a working couple with ailing parents, Smithsonian entomologist Doris Holmes Blake and USDA botanist Sidney Fay Blake were often separated, and took turns caring for and providing updates about their daughter, Doris Sidney Blake. In one sweet note, Sidney Blake wrote to his wife, visiting her parents in Massachusetts, that their daughter was in “fine shape,” had taken to curling his hair with a stick, and found her very first sparrow’s egg. You can almost feel him glowing with pride as he explained that “she didn’t even dent it.” Join a group of volunpeers in transcribing this project and get a glimpse into the life of a couple of scientists and their family in the interwar period.
For more information, explore the Doris Holmes Blake Papers finding aid.