From Plant Press, Vol. 23, No. 3, July 2020.
By Erika Gardner
On May 7, 2020, the Department of Botany lost a dedicated and amazing plant mounting volunteer, Jerome McDonald. He started volunteering at the National Museum of Natural History in 2005. During his time at the museum, he served a variety of volunteer roles. He first started with mounting plant specimens for Botany under the training and supervision of Katherine Rankin. In 2008, he participated in the training program to prepare fossils in the fossil lab for the Department of Paleobiology. He was an integral part of the Thursday plant mounting group, along with his wife Zelda McDonald. In 2018, unrelenting health issues put his volunteering appointments on hold. Zelda also took time off from volunteering to assist Jerome with his medical needs.
During Jerome’s time in Botany, he was always sharing intriguing and captivating stories. He was full of worldly knowledge and enjoyed traveling. He was also an avid cross-stitcher and a needle point enthusiast. His attention to fine details and meticulousness was evident in his needle work. It was always a treat when he would share his works of art with us. His artistic skills transpired in the specimen preparation realm. His plant specimen preparations always looked like works of art. Jerome also took to the finer things in life; he was a connoisseur of cocktails, food, and cigars. He had a fantastic sense of humor and was always armed with a fun joke or story to tell. We will miss his contributions of beautifully mounted specimens as well as his jovial laugh and kind spirit.
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