Background
Bailey was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Her father was superintendent for the Rutgers Vegetable Farm.
Bailey was born in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Her father was superintendent for the Rutgers Vegetable Farm.
Doctorate. program at Rutgers University, and graduated in 1957 with a dissertation on aspects of growing peach cultivars.
She was honored by the National Peach Council for her contributions to the United States peach industry. She received her bachelor"s degree from Douglass College in 1942. She worked with Rutgers horticulturist Maurice Blake, and ran his stone-fruit growing program until 1948.
Encouraged by Blake she entered the Ph.
Bailey was a Baptist, and had also attended Prairie Bible Institute in Canada. After finishing her doctorate, Bailey stayed on at Rutgers as a professor, a position she held until her retirement in 1980.
She continued her work in the Rutgers program with Fred Hough, expanding it from growing just peaches and apples and developing nectarine and apricot cultivars. During her career she introduced more than 39 new fruit varieties, including many new (patented) apples.
She was particularly known for her work on the genetic inheritance of ripening times.
After retirement she moved to Vermont, where she died on March 29, 2014.
She was a member of several professional societies, including the International Society for Horticultural Science, the American Society for Horticultural Science, and the American Pomological Society.