Joseph Randle Bailey

Joseph Randle “Joe” Bailey was born on 17 September 1913, in Fairmont, West Virginia. His father was also named Joseph Randle Bailey; his mother was Elizabeth Weston Maclaren. The couple had another son, Reeve, two years older than Joe.

The elder Joseph was an administrator at coal mines in Pennsylvania; he was killed when Joe was two years old. Joe's mother raised him and Reeve in Perrysburg, Ohio, just outside Toledo and near the Maumee River. She encouraged her sons in their outdoor activities, including botany, geography, and collecting animals. Because there was no high school in Perrysburg, the family eventually moved to Toledo. Even though they lived in the city, both Joe and Reeve spent much time taking buses to the country to explore and collect, and their mother continued to foster her sons' interests.

Joe attended high school in the early 1930s. During that time, he met the curator of reptiles at the Toledo Zoo, Roger Conant. He discussed natural history with Conant and accompanied him on several in-state trips to gather data and specimens, the basis of Conant's Reptiles of Ohio. In 1931, a picture was taken of the two brothers, Conant, and Charles F. Walker working in the field together; each one would eventually serve as ASIH president (photograph in Conant, 1997).

Reeve spent a year at the University of Toledo before enrolling at the University of Michigan, where he joined the swim team. Joe followed his brother to Michigan and also joined the swim team. The university was close to their home, and the brothers visited their mother often.

At Michigan, Joe was initially interested in ornithology. At that time, the head of the museum's Division of Reptiles and Amphibians was Helen T. Gaige; the director of the university's Museum of Zoology was her husband, Frederick M. Gaige. It was Mrs. Gaige who lured Joe away from birds and steered him toward herpetology. She supported his collection efforts and provided space in the museum for him to work. He received his bachelor's degree in 1935 and then worked at the university museum. He joined ASIH that year.

In the spring of 1936, ASIH held a meeting at Ann Arbor. It was there that Joe met Emmett Reid Dunn, the expert on New World caecilians at the time. Dunn invited Joe to pursue a master's degree with him at Haverford College. He then applied for and received a fellowship from the college. At Haverford, he was greatly influenced by Dunn, who also was an expert on North Carolina reptiles and amphibians. Joe's work with Dunn, later published, concerned plethodontid salamanders (Notes on plethodont salamanders of the southeastern United States. Occ. Pap. Mus. Zool. Univ. Mich. 364:1–10). Joe received his master's degree in 1937. However, also as a result of Dunn's influence, by then his interests had shifted toward the nonvenomous snakes of South and Central America, particularly their classification and evolution.

Joe then returned to the University of Michigan to pursue a doctoral degree. Reeve was also a graduate student there, and the two shared an apartment with James A. Oliver. For summer jobs, Joe and Jim conducted wildlife surveys for the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department. For his own research, Joe's mentor was Alexander Ruthven, who was university president at that time. Helen Gaige was again a major influence and encouraged him in his work, even though she, without a doctorate, was not allowed to sponsor graduate students. Joe completed his dissertation, “Relationships and distributions of the snakes allied to the genus Pseudoboa,” in 1940.

Joe applied for fellowships to work in either Brazil or Costa Rica after receiving his degree. When he received an International Exchange Fellowship, he went to Brazil to study the native reptiles and amphibians. When Pearl Harbor was bombed on 7 December 1941, Joe contacted the local U.S. embassy to inquire how he could serve his country. He was told to wait and continue his work. However, when he returned home in 1942, he was drafted, and in June, he joined the Army Air Corps. He was sent back to Brazil (perhaps because he knew Portuguese) for a year as part of a photo mapping squadron. In 1944, Joe attended Officer Training School in Georgia and was subsequently sent to Hawaii to train in aviation physiology.

He remained in the military until June 1946, at which time he returned to Ann Arbor to work in the university museum. There, he was introduced by Norman Hartweg to Dorothy “Mike” O'Donnell, from Urbana, Illinois. She had received her BA and MA from the University of Michigan, where she studied geography and geology and trained as a cartographer. Mike had worked as an illustrator for various departments around the University of Michigan campus and was working on illustrations for an ichthyologist when she was introduced to Joe. On 7 September, they were married. Because Mike's father was ill at the time, Hartweg stood in for him and gave Mike away at the wedding. Joe's brother Reeve was the best man.

During the summer of 1946, Joe had applied for a faculty position at the Department of Zoology of Duke University, which appealed to him because of the reptiles and amphibians in the area, and because the mountains and ocean were both nearby. He was hired, and in September, he and Mike moved to Durham, North Carolina, where they have resided since. They have two children, Patricia and Robert.

At Duke, Joe's research on the classification and evolution of New World snakes continued. He returned to South America several times: from 1953–1954 as a Guggenheim Memorial Foundation fellow; in 1961 as a Fulbright Lecturer at the University of São Paulo; and as a Duke Endowment Grantee in 1966. Joe also visited Australia as a Fulbright scholar at James Cook University from 1970–1971. He wanted to compare the herpetofauna of tropical northeast Australia with that of tropical northeast Brazil. Mike accompanied Joe on all his trips and was his constant companion in the field, where her skills as a cartographer were used.

When it came to publishing his work, Joe has been a perfectionist, with high standards for the accuracy and completeness of his work. Several papers describing and classifying several species resulted from Joe's collection efforts. He also published broader papers on the evolution of snakes and on approaches to colubrid classification. Those who know Joe's work well agree that he has had an excellent grasp of the organisms he has studied and their characters and of the complexity of snake classification.

Joe also worked extensively on the natural history of North Carolina vertebrates. For two summers, he was the leader for two groups that surveyed the fishes of the western mountains of North Carolina. With three others, he authored a book on local reptiles and amphibians (Amphibians and Reptiles of the Carolinas and Virginia, B. S. Martof, W. M. Palmer, J. R. Bailey, J. R. Harrison III. University of North Carolina Press, 1980). Joe was also the curator of the Duke University Vertebrate Collection.

As a professor at Duke, Joe was known mostly for teaching several field courses (such as ornithology and herpetology) that excited his students. Henry Wilbur, currently at the University of Virginia, took Joe's classes and also worked for Joe as an undergraduate curatorial assistant for the vertebrate collection. He learned from Joe “the difference between collecting herps and doing herpetology” and credits Joe as the most important influence in his early career.

Joe mentored several graduate students. Victor Hutchison, currently at the University of Oklahoma, was a master's student working on cave salamanders. He recalls several field trips across the mid-Atlantic states with Joe that were wonderful learning experiences. He regards Joe as a truly complete vertebrate zoologist with broad knowledge of fishes, amphibians, and reptiles. Other graduate students included Richard Bruce, Don Davis, Julian Harrison, Ted Murphy, Marilyn Stagner, and David Osgood.

Among the various professional societies for which he has been a member, Joe was most active in ASIH, for which he served in several capacities. He was on the board of governors from 1957–1967 and the Vice President for Finance in 1966. Nominated by his good friend Roger Conant, Joe became the society's president in 1972.

Joe has many fond memories of society meetings. Perhaps the most memorable one was in 1964, for which Joe was the local chair. Duke University and the North Carolina Department of Fisheries cohosted the meeting at Morehead City, North Carolina (near Duke University's Marine Laboratory). The Biltmore-Morehead Hotel, which had just been purchased by new owners, was selected to host most of the 200–300 delegates. The meeting was held in the fall, after Labor Day. Unfortunately, the owners of the hotel had forgotten to consider that, by that date, most of the hotel staff, composed mostly of high school students, were no longer available. In addition, because the hotel was old, many things broke down. Although the entire situation was upsetting to some, it was hilarious to others who made the most of it. Members, their spouses and children, and people from the town helped out at the meeting, which proved to be unforgettable, if not enjoyable. The year after, at the annual meeting in New Orleans, it was announced that the Biltmore-Morehead Hotel had burned down; a moment of silence was held in its honor (see story in Berra, 1984). Joe attended his last ASIH meeting in 1993 in Austin, Texas, even though he had difficulty walking.

Joe recalls that early meetings of the society were more informal and that taxonomy was a less sophisticated enterprise. However, he is pleased that the questions tackled by scientists, and their integrity and intelligence, have remained constant.

Although he retired in 1983, for 12 years after, Joe kept an office and lab at Duke University, and continued his work on South American snakes. With Robert Thomas, he had been preparing a monograph on the genus Thamnodynastes.

I met Joe Bailey in 1988 when I began as a graduate student in the Department of Zoology, Duke University. Although Joe was not on my dissertation committee and I was not able to take a class with him, Joe helped me in my research (on cranial development in thamnophiine snakes) in several ways. I often referred to the book on North Carolina reptiles and amphibians. I examined some of the specimens he had collected and kept at the Duke University Vertebrate Collections, and I used some of the equipment and snake boxes that he kept there. Joe also suggested some contacts and let me use his personal library, which was full of herpetological treasures.

Mike Bailey currently lives in Durham. Mike retired from her job as an illustrator for Duke's Department of Physics. Joe's hobbies included golf and reading. Unfortunately, Joe suffered a stroke in 1995 and was no longer able to continue his work. Both of their children live nearby. Robert received degrees in philosophy and landscape architecture and is now an antiques dealer. Patricia received advanced degrees in Portugese and in public health and currently works with Family Health International. Her work often brings her back to Latin America, where she had accompanied Joe and Mike on several expeditions as a child.