Helen Ashurst Choate

Choate was born in Irvington, New York, the daughter of Washington Choate and Grace Richards Whiton Choate.^[1] Her father was an ordained Presbyterian minister.^[2] Linguist and educator James Morris Whiton was her uncle.^[3]

She graduated from Smith College in 1904, and earned a master's degree there in 1909, working with William Francis Ganong. She completed a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1920,^[4] with a dissertation titled "Chemical Changes in Wheat During Germination" (1921).^[5][6] She was a member of Phi Beta Kappa.^[1]

Choate taught at Greenwich Academy after college. She taught botany at Smith College from 1909^[7] until she retired in 1947, and was department head for several years.^[1] She was a member of Sigma Xi, Sigma Delta Epsilon, The American Association for the Advancement of Science, the History of Science Society, and the Botanical Society of America.^[4]

Choate's work was published in scholarly journals including The Plant World, School Science and Mathematics, Torreya, Botanical Gazette, American Journal of Botany, and Science.

• "The Origin and Development of the Binomial System of Nomenclature" (1912)^[8]
• "A Standardization of Floral Diagrams for Educational Use" (1914)^[9]
• "An Unpublished Letter by Gronovius" (1916)^[10]
• "The Earliest Glossary of Botanical Terms: Fuchs 1542" (1917)^[11]
• "Chemical Changes in Wheat During Germination" (1921)^[12]
• "Dormancy and Germination in Seeds of Echinocystis lobata" (1940)^[13]
• "William Francis Ganong 1864-1941" (1941, with Frances Grace Smith)^[14]

Choate lived with her older sister Miriam Choate Hobart in their later years. Choate died in 1957, at the age of 75, at a hospital in Northampton, Massachusetts.^[15] Smith College Archives holds a box of her papers.^[1]