[37] Since Mexico was still largely unstable at this point, he and Blair traveled on horseback and lived mostly in tents, and both carried revolvers for self-protection. . [102][103] Combined with his earlier loss of Blair, the effect of losing Kalacoon plunged Beebe into depression. I saw it because I was looking down. William 'Bill' Harley Beebe. In 1949, he founded a tropical research station in Trinidad and Tobago which he named Simla, and which remains in operation as part of the Asa Wright Nature Centre. [41][42] The book was enthusiastically well received.[43]. We are sad to announce that on July 6, 2022, at the age of 64, William W. Beebe of Silver Springs, Florida passed away. A large number of military ships made docking difficult, most of the island's reefs were being destroyed to construct an airfield, and the combination of construction activity and pollution observed the sea life impossible. [29][30] Blair subsequently accompanied Beebe on several of his expeditions, and as a writer herself, frequently assisted Beebe with his own writing. [168], From 1930 to 1934, Beebe and Barton used the Bathysphere to conduct a series of dives of increasing depth off the coast of Nonsuch Island, becoming the first people to observe deep-sea animals in their native environment. [213] He was by this point the only remaining member of the zoo's original staff,[214] and had produced more scholarly papers and publicity than any other employee. He was 69 years old and. [208] His immobility also presented him with the opportunity to spend hours at a time observing a pair of bat falcons through binoculars, documenting the behavior of their two chicks and every prey item fed to them by their parents. [282], Now under the management of the Asa Wright Nature Center, the William Beebe Tropical Research Station has gradually been renovated. [75] In Burma Beebe succumbed temporarily to a bout of depression, and it was several days before he was able to resume working or continue the expedition. Although Jocelyn's studies during this expedition served as part of the basis for her monograph Fiddler Crabs of the World,[228] Beebe never published the results of his own observations during it. [71] The next ship took them to Singapore, where Beebe established a base of operations for the next stage of his expedition. [59][60] Beebe summarized this expedition in his book Our Search for a Wilderness, which was enthusiastically well-reviewed. [55][56] Roosevelt frequently provided praise for Beebe's books, and went on to write introductions to Beebe's books Tropical Wild Life and Jungle Peace. [224], In 1952, on his seventy-fifth birthday, Beebe retired from his position as the director of the NYZS's Department of Zoological Society and became Director Emeritus, while Jocelyn Crane was promoted to Assistant Director. Very little of their early correspondence survives, but Elswyth had idolized Beebe for years, and her first novel Riders of the Wind was devoted to him. As a compromise, Beebe decided to continue his marine research in Bermuda, where she and Beebe had spent their honeymoon. Who Where Receive obituaries Wilma Campbell February 22, 2023 (87 years old) View obituary Connie McAfee February 22, 2023 (61 years old) View obituary [14] While attending university, Beebe frequently split his time between the university and the American Museum of Natural history, many of whose researchers were also professors at Columbia. As birds collect about the luxuriant growths of a garden in the upper air, so hosts of fish will follow your labors, great crabs and starfish will creep thither, and now and then fairy jellyfish will throb past, superior in beauty to anything in the upper world, more delicate and graceful than any butterfly. Although some sources have described him as an only child, [3] he had a younger brother named John who died in infancy. [143] The book which resulted from this, titled Pheasants: Their Lives and Homes (also known by the title Pheasants of the World), was released in 1926 and received the John Burroughs Medal. William Beebe, in full Charles William Beebe, (born July 29, 1877, Brooklyn, N.Y., U.S.died June 4, 1962, Simla Research Station, near Arima, Trinidad), American biologist, explorer, and writer on natural history who combined careful biological research with a rare literary skill. Beebe based this theory on his observation that the hatchlings and embryos of some modern birds possess long quill feathers on their legs, which he regarded as an atavism; he also noticed vestiges of leg-wings on one of the specimens of Archaeopteryx. [144][145] During the course of writing this book, Beebe was reminded of many experiences during the pheasant expedition which he had not included in his original monograph, and wrote an additional book titled Pheasant Jungles about his adventures during this expedition. Using Kalacoon as his base of operations, Beebe performed a novel type of study: methodically dissecting a small area of jungle, and all of the animals which inhabit it, from the top of the canopy to below the ground. [120] Passing through the Sargasso Sea on the way to the Galpagos, Beebe was fascinated by the diversity of life that could be found in the sargassum weed floating on the surface and spent several days scooping the weed from the water to examine the creatures that lived in it. [] Without telling him so, we must take care of him."[104]. This time he succeeded at capturing a hoatzin, the bird that he had narrowly missed during his earlier trip to Guiana, although he was unable to keep it alive for the zoo during the trip back to New York. Obituary of William C. Beebe. Smith Family Funeral Home obituaries and Death Notices for the Little Rock, AR area. [217], At Simla Beebe and his team worked closely together with Asa and Newcome Wright, the owners of the adjacent Spring Hill estate, who provided accommodations for them while water and electricity were connected at Simla. While 83 of the fish that he described were done so in a conventional manner, the remaining four were done so based on visual observations. Searching for a way to satisfy his expedition's donors, Beebe hit upon the idea of documenting the marine life of the Hudson Gorge just beyond the shore of New York City. [2] Several factors contributed to this decision, including both excitement at being part of the zoo, and the sense that his studies were putting too much of a strain on his family's finances. William D Beebe. The first volume was highly praised by reviewers, and received the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal from the National Academy of Sciences in 1918. [72] After Malaya, the next portion of their expedition took them to Burma, where they arrived in Rangoon and traveled by rail to Myitkyina. [197] Transportation to and from Bermuda resumed in 1940, and Beebe returned there in May 1941, but the environment was slowly being transformed due to the war. [51] The following year Beebe received a promotion from the Zoological Society, placing him on equal footing with the research scientists at the Museum of Natural History. [267] While many of Beebe's observations from the Bathysphere have since been confirmed by advances in undersea photography,[226] it is unclear whether others fit the description of any known sea animal. [263], A lingering controversy exists in ichthyology over the validity of the four species Beebe described based on visual descriptions only, which he had observed during his Bathysphere dives. Text size. [47] With his many writings about the dangers of environmental destruction, Beebe helped to raise public awareness about this topic. He was born in Chester, PA and attended Penncrest High School. Beebe's study of these currents, and their effect on the climate of South America, is the earliest known study of the phenomenon known as El Nio. Bill was born October 18, 1943 near Hennessey, OK to Othel "Oat" and Nellie McCartney Beebe and passed away on September 4, 2020 at his home. [150] She disliked the heat of the tropics and was unwilling to go with Beebe to Kartabo. [15] At Columbia he studied under Henry Fairfield Osborn, and developed a close relationship with him which would endure until Osborn's death in 1935. [188] With the help of Beebe's friend the physician Henry Lloyd, Beebe conducted an expedition in the West Indies examining the stomach contents of tuna, which uncovered previously unknown larval forms of several species of fish. [101] During a second trip to Kalacoon while his wrist healed, Beebe was further devastated to discover that due to wartime demand for rubber, the entire jungle surrounding the house had been clear-cut to make room for rubber trees. [218] Although the initial purchase of Simla had contained only the house and 22 acres (0.089km2) of the forest surrounding it, Beebe soon realized that this was insufficient for the research he wished to conduct, and purchased another neighboring estate known as St. Pat's which contained an additional 170 acres (0.69km2). Born August 7, 1944 in Manito to Rollin A. and Rosie B. [279] By 1971, the station had fallen into disuse and was declared closed. [143] While A Monograph of the Pheasants had been a factual account of this expedition, Pheasant Jungles was a somewhat fictionalized account, in which Beebe altered some aspects of his experience to appeal to a wider audience. Connie McAfee Obituary. (Hall) Beebe, he married Janice Sue "Jan" Gainer on September 20, 1968 in Pekin. [242] The Archives of the Wildlife Conservation Society also holds several collections related to the Department of Tropical Research. [246] As a result of his much-publicized divorce from Blair and his later marriage to Elswyth, he was also known for his stormy relationships with women. Leave a sympathy message to the family on the memorial page of William Beebe to pay them a last tribute. It is with deep sorrow that we announce the death of Connie McAfee of Beebe, Arkansas, born in Brinkley, Arkansas, who passed away on February 22, 2023, at the age of 61, leaving to mourn family and friends. [99] During his first season at Kalacoon in 1916, Beebe brought back 300 living specimens for the zoo. [245], Beebe described his religious beliefs as a combination of Presbyterianism and Buddhism. [180] Beebe in turn lacked patience for Barton's unpredictable moods and felt that Barton did not display the proper respect for the natural world. [247] He was highly critical of efforts to use science to justify political ideologies, such as socialism[248] or the belief that women were inferior to men. [199] Beebe eventually helped Elswyth purchase a small farm near Wilmington, Vermont, where he visited her frequently. Although this evolutionary model is now taken for granted, in William Beebe's time it was a novel idea. [68] By this point Beebe was beginning to conflict with Horsfall, who was unaccustomed to such expeditions. With Roosevelt's help, he secured a post-training American pilot for a flight squadron on Long Island. In response to Beebe's dismissal, Horsfall retorted that he had been ill-treated by Beebe from the beginning of the expedition and that his subsequent actions had been for the express purpose of revenge. Beebe and Barton made a deal: Barton would pay for the sphere and all of the other equipment to go with it. His terrace there was decorated with statues of characters from Winnie-the-Pooh that had been a gift from A. Beebe was a well-known figure in the Roaring Twenties of New York City and was friends with numerous other well-known figures of the period, including Fannie Hurst and the cartoonist Rube Goldberg. Memorial services were held in both Trinidad and Tobago and New York City so that Beebe's friends in both parts of the world could attend. Beebe's Tetrapteryx hypothesis is now regarded as prescient for its prediction of both the anatomy and likely gliding posture of Microraptor gui,[274] which Richard O. Prum has described as "[looking] as if it could have glided straight out of the pages of Beebes notebooks. [176] Although Beebe and Barton performed no dives in 1933, their work gathered a large amount of publicity when the Bathysphere was displayed in a special exhibit for the American Museum of Natural History, and later at the Century of Progress World's Fair in Chicago, where they shared the fair's Hall of Science with Auguste Piccard. [52] The first expedition conducted under his new privileges, beginning in February 1908, took him to Trinidad and Tobago and Venezuela to research birds and insects. [283] It is also a popular destination for birdwatchers, who can observe the same populations of hummingbirds, tanagers and oilbirds that William Beebe studied decades earlier.[279]. William Thomas Beebe. [3][22] As assistant curator, one of his principal jobs was to breed and rear the zoo's birds in order to sustain their population. [167] Beebe named their vessel the Bathysphere, from the Greek prefix bathy- meaning "deep" combined with "sphere". Age: 88 City: Anamosa Funeral Date 10:30 a.m., Saturday, 6/5, at United Church of Christ Church, Central City. [83] based on his observations he also proposed a new evolutionary model of pheasant ancestry, involving a period of rapid diversification followed by more typical and gradual changes. [133] The Arcturus was outfitted with Beebe's pulpit and boom walk from the Noma, as well as cages and tanks for live animals, chemicals and vials to preserve dead ones, and a darkroom for developing film and studying the bioluminescent animals they hoped to encounter. This was the first time a biologist observed deep-sea animals in their native environment and set several successive records for the deepest dive ever performed by a human, the deepest of which stood until it was broken by Barton 15 years later. Barton was convinced that Beebe's design for a diving vessel would never be capable of withstanding the extreme pressure of the deep ocean,[165] and with the help of a friend who arranged a meeting with Beebe, proposed an alternative design to him. [113] The completed work, titled A Monograph of the Pheasants, has been considered by some reviewers to be possibly the greatest ornithological monograph of the twentieth century. [170] Beebe's observations were relayed up the phone line to be recorded by Gloria Hollister,[171] his chief technical associate who was also in charge of preparing specimens obtained from dredging. WILBUR "BILL" BEEBE | Obituary | Pittsburgh Post Gazette WILBUR "BILL" BEEBE December 10, 1943 - March 4, 2022 Age 78, of Plum Boro, passed away peacefully on March 4, 2022. Beebe and his team began work there in 1945, staying as guests of the Venezuelan government. [166] Barton had the good fortune that years earlier, Theodore Roosevelt had proposed a similar idea to Beebe, and Beebe approved of Barton's design. L.A. Times photographer Bill Beebe, who waded into ocean to snap iconic JFK image, dies at 94 President Kennedy is surrounded by admirers on a Santa Monica beach in the iconic image taken by Los. Visitation Thursday 6-7 pm at the funeral home. [117][118], Beebe was eager to undertake an expedition to the Galpagos Islands, intending to obtain more detailed data in support of evolution than Charles Darwin had been able to collect in his earlier visit. Arcturus, at 280ft (85.3m), was considerably larger than the Noma and was capable of being at sea for extended periods of time. [108] Beebe's duties as curator were passed to Lee Crandall, the former Assistant Curator who had worked under Beebe,[109] although Crandall continued to rely on Beebe for help treating illness in birds, and caring for the exotic birds brought back from Beebe's expeditions. [114][263] This was particularly significant in the area of conservation, of which he was one of the most important early advocates. [146], In 1927, Beebe went on an expedition to Haiti to document its marine life. Dr. William A. Beebe of Weeki Wachee, Fla., formerly of Edison, died Tuesday at his home, surrounded by his loving family. In lieu of flowers, donations in memory of William can be made to the Lung Association of Saskatchewan. For this gift, he was made a life member of the New York Zoological Society. His training work was halted when, veering to avoid a photographer who had run in front of his airplane as he landed, he crashed on landing and severely injured his right wrist. [82] Beebe's observations of sexual dimorphism in pheasants during this expedition led him to become the first biologist to correctly understand the mechanism by which this aspect of sexual selection operates. BEEBE, William Michael February 19, 1954 - August 19, 2016. The paper which finally resulted from this study was published in Zoologica in 1925 and was the first study of its kind in the developing field of tropical ecology. [36], In December 1903, to avert another bout of Beebe's throat ailment, Hornaday sent him on an expedition to Mexico which would last until the following April. Meanwhile, Beebe began searching for a new tropical research station to replace Kartabo, which had fallen victim to deforestation just like Kalacoon before it. The publisher which Beebe chose for his work was George Witherby and Sons of London, as a result of their success publishing the artwork of John James Audubon. [245] Although he was not physically handsome in the traditional sense, he tended to dominate every social and professional situation due to his enthusiasm, intelligence, and charisma. [238][239] According to his wishes, he was buried in Mucurapo Cemetery in Port of Spain. William R Beebe age 79 of Delta, Ohio, passed away at Swanton Health care and retirement Center Sunday, October 25, 2020. Several of Beebe's photographs from these expeditions were purchased by Columbia professors to use as slides during their lectures. Roosevelt in turn admired Beebe's writing and his respect for the natural world. He sailed along the border between the currents for several days to document it, theorizing that it could be the cause of the unusual climate which South America had recently been experiencing. [223] Local children periodically brought animal specimens to Beebe at Simla and asked him to classify them. He is also remembered for several theories he proposed about avian evolution which are now regarded as having been ahead of their time, particularly his 1915 hypothesis that the evolution of bird flight passed through a four-winged or "Tetrapteryx" stage, which has been supported by the 2003 discovery of Microraptor gui. John William Coulter Obituary. [190] In 1937 Beebe went on a second expedition aboard the Zaca, documenting the native wildlife along the Pacific Coast from Mexico to Colombia. [202] One important study which resulted from this region was the first documentation of rhinoceros beetles using their horns in competition between males, proving that their horns were an adaptation for sexual selection rather than for defense against predators. [33], The following February, Beebe, and Blair went on an expedition to the Florida Keys, because Beebe was suffering from a throat infection and the zoo believed that the warm climate would be beneficial to his health. Funeral Home Murdoch Funeral Homes & Cremation Service To plant a tree in memory of William D Beebe . [220], Research at Simla formally began in 1950. [93] The reproduction of the illustrations themselves was to be handled by several companies in Germany and Austria. [221] Beebe's research at Simla combined elements of many different earlier stages of his research, including observations of the life cycles of the area's birds, detailed analyses of every plant and animal in small areas of forest, and studies of insect behavior. An additional difficulty in 1931 was the death of Beebe's father, and Beebe left Nonsuch Island for a week to attend his father's funeral. [142], Shortly after Beebe's return from this expedition, Anthony Kuser requested that Beebe produce a condensed, popular version of his pheasant monograph. [137] Beebe continued to perform helmet dives throughout his Galpagos expedition, documenting several previously unknown sea animals. This expedition was Beebe's introduction to the tropics, with which he developed a long-standing fascination. [192], During the two Zaca expeditions Beebe was accompanied by his longtime assistant John Tee-Van as well as Jocelyn Crane, a young carcinologist who had first worked for Beebe at Nonsuch Island in 1932,[193] and who would subsequently be among Beebe's most cherished associates for the rest of his life. [200], With the financial assistance of Standard Oil and the Guggenheim Foundation, Beebe established his next research station in Caripito, a small city in Venezuela around 100 miles (160km) west of Trinidad and Tobago.
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