extremely difficult and dangerous me, and in Phycological Trailblazer 1938, Sophie, her husband, and young son Klaus No. 28 were forced to flee Germany. Sophie, expec ng a second child, was ini ally on her own. Her father Sophie C. Ducker had entrusted her with a small but very valuable collec on of stamps to use as possible collateral (Originally printed in the Phycological Newsle er. in her escape, but, as she later told me, all the 2008. Vol. 44 No. 1) stamps were taken from her at a border crossing. Another incident, a trauma c event, that With the death of Sophie Ducker on 20 she also related to me of her escape was that May, 2004, in Melbourne, phycology lost a major when her labor pains began, she was put into a contemporary figure, a person who contributed room all by herself, where she gave birth to a much to our understanding of marine algae, sea- daughter. She received no medical assistance, grasses and their pollina on, hor culture, and and the baby died soon a er birth. Separated the history of botany. On April 9, 1909, Sophie from her husband and her son, Sophie traveled Charlo e von to “Persia” [Iran], Klemperer was born where she was in Berlin into a finally reunited with prominent Jewish her family. She family, in which her happened to be banker father had visi ng her parents sufficient leisure in Rhodesia, where me and resources they had escaped to spend much of to, when the War his non-banking fully broke out. She hours in was forced to accumula ng very remain in Africa for old books. That love some me for books was employed as a passed down to governess on a Sophie. She was remote farm raised in Dresden, Sophie Ducker on a Sphagnum bog near Brighton, Michigan, looking a er 5 August, 1982. but with her father off children. In 1940 she to serve in the was able to book Austrian Army during World War I, normal life passage on an Italian ship headed from was non-existent. She was sent off to England to Mozambique to Persia, were her husband and complete her educa on (at the Cheltenham son were located. But while that journey was Ladies College), upon which she returned to underway, in June of 1940, Italy entered the war, Germany. She had an abiding fascina on with and the boat got chased by a Bri sh warship. The plant life and thus started advanced studies in ship that Sophie was on took refuge in botany, first with the freshwater phycologist R. southeastern Persia, and from that remote point H. Chodat in Geneva. This was pivotal training Sophie made a risky journey, partly on that opened up to her the world of algae. She camelback through bandit country, to reach the also studied in Stu gart. But this educa on was rela ve safety of Tehran. In 1941, with the three interrupted in 1931, when she married Dr. Duckers s ll in Persia, the Soviet Army invaded Johann Friedrich Ducker, an execu ve officer the northern part of the country, and the Bri sh with the Chamber of Commerce in Hamburg. forces invaded the south. Sophie‘s husband was With the emergence of the Nazi regime placed under arrest by the Soviet Army, but in Germany, the decade of the 1930s was an 1 first, Sophie did menial tasks such as washing glassware and preparing media, but gradually she was given more and more responsibili es, eventually becoming a co-author to several publica ons with Dr. McLennan. Sophie’s innate abili es and her enthusiasm for botany became obvious to everyone, and she was now even entrusted with academic responsibili es such as mentoring her own PhD students. She also transferred her a en on more to the marine algae as well as to sea-grasses Fig. 1. Sophie Ducker (second from le ), with Murray Parsons, Irené despite the constant Novaczek, and Francis Magne, on foray to Queenscliff, Victoria, Australia, discouragement and carping of her August, 1988 Department Head that there was no pres ge, future or road to according to son Klaus’ story (Ducker, 2004), his advancement in the study of such Mother was able to cajole the Bri sh authori es inconsequen al organisms. Her interests were [she had a knack for that] in Tehran into very broad: systema cs, ecology, the rela onship arranging her husband’s release. Once set free of host and epiphyte or parasite, pollina on from the Russians, Dr. Ducker, his wife Sophie ecology in sea-grasses, and eventually history. and young Klaus soon le on a boat, with very She was allowed to advise several graduate few possessions, headed for an unknown students over the years. These included Ian des na on. They arrived in Australia just before Price, Robert King, Peter Saenger, Margaret Japan entered the War. It was in Australia, more Clayton, Vicki Brown, Serena Canterford, and specifically Melbourne, where they se led, Cameron McKonchie. She had frui ul established roots, and were later to become collabora ons on such diverse topics as Australian ci zens, although husband Fritz’s pollina on in sea-grasses and dis nc ve red qualifica ons and doctorate were never algal pigments with colleagues in the School of recognized in that country and he never Botany such as Bruce Knox, Kingsley Rowan, and achieved the status there that he would have John Pe t. Like many of the talented Australian had he elected to remain in Germany and woman botanists of her era, such as Isabelle abandon his “Jewish” wife as he was ordered to Cookson, Ethel McLennan, Margaret Blackwood, do by the Nazis. and Gretna Weste, Sophie was a vic m of a It was only a er Sophie’s son was raised repressive “glass ceiling” at Melbourne that she made the decision to resume the University for none of these talented scien sts pursuit of a botanical career, even though she were ever elevated to full professorships and had no graduate degree. Her first employment indeed were granted only the rank of reader was in the Botany School at ‘Melbourne Uni’, (i.e., Associate Professor) in their last year before where she worked in the fungal lab of Dr. Ethel re rement. Her interest in green algae McLennan, who proved to be an encouraging resulted in several papers, including not just a mentor (Ducker, 1988b 1995a). The focus of monograph of Chlorodesmis (Ducker, 1967) but McLennan’s lab was to establish and maintain also the first publica on on the use of numerical cultures of fungi, especially Penicillium, as a taxonomy in an algal genus (Ducker et al., 1965). resource for obtaining an bio cs in Australia. At 2 She had several solo-authored and co-authored me a small vial of a wet-preserved papers on various green algal genera and also on delesseriacean alga that she had “secreted” out species of mostly ar culated Corallinaceae, of Madagascar in 1974. It was just a fragment, including a monograph of the Australian but in studying that small scrap I was able to endemic genus Metagoniolithon (Ducker, determine that it was the totally obscure species 1979b). Her fluency in several languages gave Delesseria ferlusii Hariot, the original 18th her a facility to carry out her research in the Century collec on having been made at Fort history of phycology, with an emphasis on Dauphin, Madagascar. But I also later realized Australia. She dealt with contribu ons by the that it had to be an undescribed genus that I was French (1979a), the Germans (1981, b, c), and pleased to name Duckerella. Her Madagscar trip the Austrians (1990a), as well as producing more also resulted in the descrip on of a totally new general historical treatments (1981a, 1990b). But genus and species of gigar nalean algae of the it was William Harvey, of Trinity College, Dublin, obscure family Acrotylaceae which Gerry Kra Ireland, that she was especially drawn to (1972, named Ranavalona (a er both the collec on 1977, 1992, 2002). A visit to Harvard University locality, Cape Ranavalona, and a famous early resulted in her discovering a treasure-trove of queen of the southern region) duckerae (Kra , le ers wri en by Harvey to Asa Gray and his wife 1977). Sophie’s Madagascar trip was not without Emma Gray (and to others), allowing Sophie to considerable personal dangers. Madagascar was edit a handsome volume of these then governed by a series of unstable le -wing correspondences (Ducker, 1988a). Her chapter dictatorships. Life and safety for the very few on the history of Australia phycology (done with intrepid visi ng westerners could be very Roberta Cowan) in the recent book “Algae of uncertain. Awai ng departure with a large Australia: Introduc on” is a very rich source of collec on of marine algae, she was told that all informa on and a fi ng final contribu on from would have to be le behind and that the her (Cowan & Ducker, 2007). penal es for a emp ng to smuggle out even the I first met Sophie Ducker as a grad smallest amount of natural resources would be student in the mid-1960s, when she spent some severe. Re ring to the ladies’ room, Sophie me in the Dept of Botany and Herbarium of the picked out the cream of her collec ons University of California, Berkeley, consul ng with (including the “Delesseria” and Ranavalona), Drs G. F. Papenfuss and P. C. Silva. Some me secreted the specimens in her brazier, and later (in 1981) I spent a sabba cal at Melbourne returned in mida on for in mida on as she Uni interac ng much with her and with old sailed majes cally through customs. friends and colleagues such as Gerry Kra , Rick A year later, in 1982, on her way to Wetherbee, Carrick Chambers, and Tim Entwisle. a end the First Interna onal Phycological I was housed in a rather spartan “faculty flat” at Congress in St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada, one of the “colleges” (student resident halls), Sophie came through Ann Arbor and stayed with and Sophie o en checked to make sure that I me. I can’t recall where the idea came from, but was ge ng along ok, loaning me books to read I decided to drive her up to a very picturesque and her spare “telly”. She also invited me several Sphagnum bog just west of Brighton, Michigan, a mes to have dinner with her at her home on perfect place to see sundews and pitcher plants, Percy Street in the suburb of Balwyn. I recall how as well as to make Sphagnum “squeezings” for she would go out into her backyard and bring in acid-loving desmids. Sophie quickly ventured out ripe vegetables and fruits like pomegranates and on the bog and although by then in her early citrus to add to the meal. Her home was also a 70s, she totally delighted in jumping up and rich library full of choice items that she was later down, as if she were on a ma ress. It was a to bequeath to the University of Melbourne genuine quaking bog a er all, and she remarked special-collec ons Library. It was during that that it was her first me on such a Sphagnum sabba cal stay that Sophie kindly turned over to bog since she had le Germany almost 45 years
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