Since February 12 is the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birthday, my thoughts evolved to recognize him, and two people who made his work possible even though they opposed his theories. One is Robert FitzRoy who captained the HMS Beagle on which Darwin studied for five years. The other is his beloved wife Emma, a loving and skillful partner. Those two chose freedom of learning and tolerance, as opposed to burying his work. They deserve to be honored in our time when high school textbooks and private religious colleges do not mention the science of evolution. 
    FitzRoy was chosen to command the Beagle and chart the seas and shores of the world for England’s booming naval fleets. The 26-year-old wanted a naturalist to study the lands and a “suitable gentleman who would share his scientific tastes” on the dangerous voyage.
    Their skills and interests matched, except that Darwin excluded Christianity while he focused on observations that led to scientific conclusions, while FitzRoy embraced current theories of Creationism while he skillfully surveyed the natural wonders for maps.
    For five years Darwin collected and studied bones, carcasses, fossils and insects. The crew under FitzRoy loaded, off-loaded and shipped Darwin’s specimens and observations back to England with no recorded opposition.
    Darwin’s beloved wife Emma enabled him to spend over 20 years as a country gentlemen exchanging his observations and emerging theories with scientists and citizens before publishing The Origin of Species. She was a devout Christian, loving and faithful to him, who raised their ten children, managed their servants and estate, and attended the continuously sickly Darwin. 
    This remarkable woman also influenced his work. In an abridged version of Origin of the Species, Phillip Appleman wrote, “She asked him challenging questions, writing countless hours at his dictation, and helping correct the proofs of his weighty books.”
    All three people struggled with doubt and anguish because each tolerated and supported partners with profoundly opposing beliefs. FitzRoy wondered if he should have supported Darwin after almost all religious leaders condemned Darwin’s evolution as heresy. Darwin wrote that he felt like a murderer when he theorized that natural selection determined the survival of species because Emma believed it undermined the foundation of her Christianity. And we can only imagine the torment Emma faced when she let theories she abhorred flow through her fingers as Darwin dictated them.
    All three championed freedom to learn, which requires the discipline of tolerance. Darwin observed first and theorized second so observations alone laid the foundations for his theories. Most religions currently agree with Pope Pious’ encyclical Humani generis (1950) which proclaims, “general evolution, even of the body of man and woman should be professionally studied.”
    The other two placed Christianity as their highest value and resisted theories that questioned that faith. Their Christian love for their neighbor, Darwin, led them to choose tolerance and knowledge over intolerance and ignorance. They deserve recognition alongside Darwin.