page_title: Edvard August Vainio
section_title: Later life
hierarchical_section_title: Edvard August Vainio / Later life
caption_attribution_description: English: The Finnish lichenologist Edvard Vainio (1872–1929)
context_page_description: Edvard August Vainio was a Finnish lichenologist. His works on the cryptogam flora of Lapland, his three-volume monograph on the genus Cladonia, and in particular his study of the natural classification and morphology of lichens in Brazil made Vainio renowned internationally.
  Young Vainio's friendship with the ten-years-older university student Johan Petter Norrlin helped him develop an impressive knowledge of local cryptogam flora and allowed him ample opportunity to hone his collection and identification techniques at an early age. It was through this association that Vainio also met Norrlin's teacher, the prominent lichenologist William Nylander, who supported his early botanical efforts. Vainio's earliest publications dealt with phytogeography or elucidating and enumerating the local flora. Already in these early publications he demonstrated an attention to detail and thoroughness that would become characteristic of his later work.
context_section_description: Vainio married Marie Louise Scolastique (née Pérottin), the daughter of a French official, in 1891. They had five children together, although one daughter died soon after birth. His eldest son, with whom he had a close relationship, was the well-known Scout leader and painter Charles Edouard Ilmari (1892–1955). The walls of the elder Vainio's Turku University office were adorned with portraits of prominent lichenologists that were painted by his son. His other children were Marie Marcienne Alice (1894–1979); Louise (born and died in 1896); Irja Louise Mercedes (1899–1976); and Ahti Victor August (1902–1958). The elder Vainio was described as "a person of retiring habits contented with the bare necessities of life." Adolf Hugo Magnusson, in his obituary of Vainio, recalled the occasion of his 70th birthday party, where Vainio was visited in his home by a group of colleagues from the University of Turku. Although Vainio seemed to be uncomfortable with the attention, he was always willing to draw on his knowledge and extensive memory to give advice and information to inquiring lichenologists.
  Regarding his character, his colleague Kaarlo Linkola noted that "he appeared extremely friendly and helpful, though reserved old man, and also a very eccentric personality, with many peculiar features, some of which greatly contributed to his difficult, even tragic life", further noting that "he was extremely obstinate, and he was absolutely unwilling to withdraw from a step which he had once taken." Vainio was dedicated to his research, and could be found working at all hours, even on public holidays. Linkola indicates that he had not taken a day of rest for decades, even when sick. Other biologists in Turku referred to "Vainio's lighthouse", as light would often be seen emerging, often well past midnight, from the lamp coming from the windows of his small room in Turku in the old university building.
  Vainio was a patriot and proponent of Finnish nationalism. All his life he had made every effort to support Finnish interests, language and culture to emerge from under the pressure of either the long traditional Swedishness or the attempted Russification of his country by the Russian rulers, who applied every means of pressure to suppress Finnish nationalism. In the 1870s he was involved with pro-Finnish student activism. He was one of the first to replace his non-Finnish name with a Finnish one, Wainio. The name – which means "field" – was taken from a village in Hollola of the same name. He later changed this to the modern Finnish spelling "Vainio" in 1921, in accordance with contemporary changes in Finnish orthography.
  Vainio was generally healthy for most of his life, but suffered from severe nephralgia (pain in the kidney) and spent the final three weeks of his life in the hospital of Turku. He died on 14 May 1929, at age 76. He is said to have expressed two great regrets before his death: his uncompleted Lichenographia fennica manuscript, and the infrequency with which he saw his children after his move to Turku.
caption: Edvard Vainio
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