Nellie Rau

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Life

Born: dd Month 188?

Died: dd Month 1972

Biography

Born near Athens, Ohio, Nellie Harris Rau graduated from the University of Kansas with a degree in library science. When her brother, biologist J. Arthur Harris, took a position as the librarian of the Missouri Botanical Gardens, Nellie Rau was hired as a cataloger. A research trip with him to England was a major influence on her knowledge about scientific publishing. Her husband Phil Rau quit school in the fourth grade to work for his family's dry goods store, but was a passionate reader with a deep interest in the natural world. They met at the Botanical Gardens, and Phil published his first paper on insect behavior a year before they married. Together the pair researched the insects native to their area and wrote up their findings while raising three children and a menagerie of pets. The Raus were among the first to realize the importance of studying insects in their natural habitats. Among their more interesting findings was the use of tools by the Ammophila wasps, decades before Jane Goodall's documentation of tool-use by chimpanzees. According to their children, Nellie and Phil did all their research and writing together as a team, so it is difficult to say which research partner was responsible for which exact phrase in their published works. After the death of Phil and a daughter-in-law, Nellie Rau stepped in to raise three of her grandchildren.

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