Bernard Ogilvie Dodge - Early Years

Early Years

Bernard Ogilvie Dodge was an eighth generation descendant of Rebecca Nurse, the third of seven children born to Mary Ann and Elbridge Gerry Dodge. Though neither parent had a high school education, both had a strong love for literature, music and learning. Elbridge Dodge was widely acquainted with the writings of Shakespeare, Byron, Chaucer, Spencer, and Pope, and supplemented the income from his Mauston, Wisconsin farm by teaching in the local schools.

Bernard Dodge spent the first 20 years of his life working on the family farm. He recalled to biographer W. J. Robbins that at the age of 10 a bumper crop of sorghum required operation of the mill day and night during the rush period of syrup making. At such times Dodge's father, two of Dodge's older brothers, and he worked 18 hours a day, beginning at midnight. (Bernard's job was to stand on the circling horsepower platform and drive the horses, walking sideways to avoid dizziness.) That same winter, Bernard Dodge also worked at the local schoolhouse, one mile away, to sweep out the schoolhouse and build the fire. He earned five cents each school day.

Bernard Dodge did not complete his high school education until he was 20 years old. He taught high school and then entered the University of Wisconsin as a special student in 1896, only to leave college less than a year later when his funds were exhausted. He returned to teaching until, at the age of 28, he had saved enough money to resume his formal education. He obtained a diploma from Milwaukee Normal School, returned to teaching a third time (serving as high school principal at Algoma, Wisconsin, where he also taught botany, physics and geometry). Dodge returned to the University of Wisconsin in 1908, at the age of 36, and completed the requirements for the Ph.B. degree in 1909.

In high school, Dodge had a three-month course in botany in which each student was required to collect and identify 75 plants, using the keys of Gray's "School and Field Botany" textbook. Dodge recounted to W. J. Robbins that he "far exceeded the number required". While still a high school principal in Algoma, a chance meeting with an amateur mycologist (a Bohemian tailor with a basket full of "Pilze" that were "gut fur essen") aroused an interest in collecting fungi. Dodge sent specimens to the University of Wisconsin for identification, bought Atkinson's book on mushrooms, and his wife Jennie presented him with MacIllwain's "One Thousand Edible Mushrooms" as a Christmas present.

At the University of Wisconsin, Dodge studied Botany under R. A. Harper. When Harper transferred to Columbia University in New York, he suggested that Dodge undertake graduate work there. Dodge accepted a minor position as Assistant and Research Fellow in Botany at Columbia University. Dodge received his Ph.D at the age of 40; his first paper was published when he was 42.

Dodge remained at Columbia University as Instructor of Botany until 1920, when he accepted an appointment as Plant Pathologist (in fruit diseases) in the Bureau of Plant Industry of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. During his eight years in Washington, D.C., he initiated his studies of Neurospora.