Yes Duchess D’angoulme is believed to be one of the parents and Kieffer the other as everyone can read about above. If you read the glowing testimonials above from the previous generation it’s easy to see some people love the Douglas pear! The old timers made most of our modern fruit breeders look like amateurs. Ayer was one of them who developed several new types of pears like douglas. Ayer was no Van Mons but they all had their own claims to fame. At the time of its creation Douglas was very valuable because it gave people fresh fruit at a time of the year when they didn’t have it. Van Mons who developed pears like anjou would harvest pears unripe then let the pear rot intentionally knowing the impact it had on the seed. Modern fruit breeders cannot match their results. Unfortunately many things they did are lost to time. The Douglas pear might have been lost without programs like Corvallis.