A rare and mostly unknown book titled Illustrations of the Nests and Eggs of Birds of Ohio is on display in Music Hall’s Founders Room during the CSO Proof: From the Canyons to the Starts concerts along with prints of illustrations by Genevieve Estelle Jones contained within the book. The 1886 book itself is in the glass case, turned to one of the amazingly life-like illustrations created by Genevieve.

Genevieve Estelle Jones was born on May 13, 1847 to the country doctor, Nelson E. Jones, and Virginia Smith Jones in Circleville, Ohio (about 100 miles northeast of Cincinnati). Genevieve was an adept student, excelling in math, music, science and languages. She was homeschooled by her mother until she reached high school age. After graduating from high school in 1865, Genevieve continued her studies in language, music, chemistry, algebra and calculus.

Dr. Jones instilled a love of birds and natural history within his children (Genevieve had a younger brother named Howard). Dr. Jones was an amateur ornithologist and collected nests and eggs with his children — they even turned the barn behind their house into a family aviary. On one of their nest/egg collection journeys, they came across a nest they could not identify, and there was no book to help them with their identification. As Joy Kiser, author of a book on Jones titled America’s Other Audubon, stated in an NPR interview, “That’s when the seed for [Genevieve’s] idea was planted.”

This ‘idea’ would eventually take the form of the book on display, Illustrations of the Nests and Eggs of Birds of Ohio.

Two events catalyzed Genevieve to make this idea a reality. In 1876 at the age of 29, Genevieve traveled to the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. There she encountered John James Audubon’s paintings from The Birds of America. Genevieve noted that his paintings were missing one important aspect: the nests and eggs of the birds. This inspired Genevieve to illustrate the missing nests and eggs of Audubon’s birds. Her parents were reluctant for Genevieve to undertake such a massive (and expensive) project, however.

Also, Genevieve suffered from headaches and eye pains following the years of the Civil War and had recurring outbreaks of acne rosacea, which made her self-conscious about her appearance. Genevieve had only one romantic interest, whom she had planned to marry until her family intervened. The man in question had problems with alcoholism, and Genevieve’s parents forbade her to marry the man she loved. Genevieve became distraught, silent and withdrawn.

Concerned about their daughter’s well-being, Dr. Nelson and Virginia encouraged Genevieve to undertake illustrating the nests and eggs of birds. This quickly became a family project. Howard would collect the nests, Dr. Nelson paid for the publishing fees, and Genevieve and a friend learned lithography to begin illustrating the nests.

Illustrating the nests and eggs of all 320 bird species in America was the original plan, but the family was successful in getting Genevieve to scale back the project to the 130 bird species found in Ohio.

“The book was sold by subscription in twenty-three parts. When part one of Genevieve's work was issued, leading ornithologists praised the illustrations, and Presidents Rutherford B. Hayes and Theodore Roosevelt added their names to the subscription list. One reviewer wrote: ‘It is one of the most beautiful and desirable works that has ever appeared in the United States upon any branch of natural history and ranks with Audubon's celebrated work on birds.’” —Joy Kiser, from the dust jacket of America’s Other Audubon.

Genevieve completed five illustrations before suddenly dying of Typhoid fever in 1879: of the wood thrush, indigo bunting, eastern kingbird, eastern phoebe and yellow warbler.

Remarkably, the story doesn’t end there.

Howard and Virginia finished the task that Genevieve started. Howard continued to collect the nests and eggs for Virginia to illustrate. Virginia, who was not an artist, drew the lithograph on stone and hand-colored 50 copies of each illustration. Howard also wrote all of the field notes contained within the book.

Two years after Genevieve’s death, Typhoid fever again struck the family, this time leaving Howard and Virginia alive, but in failing health, and severely damaging Virginia’s eyes, which made drawing the new nests extremely difficult. Nevertheless, Howard and Virginia finished the nearly 130 illustrations required to complete the book.

The subscription fees never covered the full cost of publishing; therefore, Dr. Nelson dumped his entire retirement savings into publishing each of the 23 parts. Toward the end of her life, and after straining to draw the nests, Virginia completely lost her Typhoid-damaged eyesight.

The completed volume was exhibited at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, where it was awarded the bronze medal.

Only 90 copies of Illustrations of the Nests and Eggs of Birds of Ohio were produced. Fewer than 20 are known to exist today, including the copy on loan from the Cincinnati Public Library and on display in the Founders Room for these concerts.

A special thank you to the Cincinnati Public Library for loaning the CSO this amazing folio for display at these concerts. Illustrations of the Nests and Eggs of Birds of Ohio is also part of the Library’s digital collection and high-resolution scans can be browsed here.

For more on the lives of the Jones family, read Joy M. Kiser’s book, America’s Other Audubon.

To see the illustrations that inspired Genevieve Estelle Jones, Cincinnati Public Library has scans of John James Audubon’s illustrations from The Birds of America, which are freely available here.