The Snowflake Man by Duncan C. Blanchard - Book Review

Those who already appreciate the beauty of the snow will always see The Snowflake Man in their mind's eye each winter following the reading of this biography.

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On February 9, 1865, Wilson Alwyn Bentley was born, providing Jericho, Vermont with a farmer the community would never truly appreciate and a creative genius whose gifts the world will never forget.

Having grown up discovering he had a great love for the beauty of nature, Wilson's mother gave him a microscope for his fifteenth birthday, and the Snowflake Man was truly born. Wilson used that microscope to closely study what he more accurately termed "snow crystals." He had a desire to capture their fragile forms for himself and to share with others, so he began trying to draw those he caught. Of course, that was a difficult feat, as they would evaporate, dulling the edges and altering the shape, before he could get a complete picture of their details. Upon turning seventeen, he received another gift, one that would be his constant companion during his snowflake endeavors for the rest of his 66 years.

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With a microscope, and now a camera, Wilson spent the new few years on trial and error until he perfected a way to take photomicrographs of his beloved snow crystals. He was now better equipped to study them and determine their makeup, the science of their design, and share his determinations with the world. This he would do in small ways, at first, by selling his photomicrographs to interested parties and by writing, and submitting, articles that combined his meteorological data behind the construction of the crystals. It was Wilson Bentley who originally coined a form of the now widely recognized phrase "no two snowflakes are alike." While some of his theories were not the first noted in the field, many offered breakthroughs into the science of winter's fragile offerings. In later years, Wilson would add some traveling to give lectures to his list of professional accomplishments, but, of course, his camera went with him.

While Wilson had other interests in the beautiful things nature offered such as rocks, raindrops, dewdrops, and even the smiles of pretty women, his first love remained snow crystals, and there are a large number of articles to prove that. His greatest gift to a wider audience, however, is his collection of photomicrographs. In 47 years, he had accumulated 5,381, and in 1931, 2,453 of those would be frozen in time in the book Snow Crystals by W. A. Bentley and W. J. Humphreys. That was to be Wilson's final piece of work. A week after receiving three copies of his book, he was walking home from the train junction on a cold, slushy day, having decided, as usual, against hiring a ride. He caught a cold and hid himself away in his half of the Bentley farm house. By the time his family determined he needed medical attention, no matter how he felt about it, he had contracted pneumonia. Wilson A. Bentley, the Snowflake Man, would exit this world two days before Christmas 1931, in the winter that he loved so much.

It took Duncan Blanchard many years to get around to, and complete, the biography of Wilson Bentley that he so wanted to write, and I am thankful that his determination panned out. A retired atmospheric scientist, he had an interest in Bentley's work, and his enthusiasm shines through in the telling. Not only that, but his knowledge on the subject matter makes it easy to understand the more technical aspects, even if some portions do get a tad dry.

The amount of research that Blanchard put into The Snowflake Man A Biography of Wilson A. Bentley is amazing. He was incredibly thorough, gathering information via personal conversations, historical documents, the few surviving letters, newspaper and magazine articles, and a variety of other sources. With all of the material, he was able to paint the picture of Bentley's life going back 5 generations before he was born (a history Bentley, himself, had no details of) and in a way that makes readers feel as though they know the man behind the crystals, the disorganized gentleman with an appreciation of the finer points in nature. He was unappreciated at home, but known around the world for his detailed research. He was a man so obsessed with his first love that he never married. He dedicated his life to his research and left a legacy.

I think the only issue I might have with this book, comes toward the end. Being "The Snowflake Man" meant the majority of the biography would be about that aspect of Bentley's life, but Blanchard, in an effort to give a broader picture of the man Wilson truly was, and the scope of his appreciation of all things beautiful, tossed in the chapter "No Two Smiles are Alike." While it does manage to tie in, for the most part, in a way it didn't flow as well with the rest of the book, just as the quickly mentioned collection of rocks Bentley had. I can forgive that, however, because that chapter shares more of his personality, and I cannot complain about that.

Other works on, or by, Wilson Bentley...

• Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin
• Snowflakes in Photographs by W. A. Bentley
• Snow Crystals by W. A. Bentley and W. J. Humphreys
• My Brother Loved Snowflakes : the Story of Wilson A. Bentley, the Snowflake Man by Mary Bahr
• Snowflake Bentley : Man of Science, Man of God by Gloria May Stoddard