william beebe obituary

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. Service for William D. "Bill" Beebe, age 76, of Enid is Friday, September 11, 2020 at 10:00 am at Ladusau-Evans Funeral Home. William Beebe Obituary With heavy hearts, we announce the death of William Beebe of Enid, Oklahoma, who passed away on September 4, 2020. Appalled by the destruction, Beebe finally rented his station at Nonsuch Island to a military contractor and returned to New York. [220][223] In honor of his lifetime of work as a naturalist, Beebe was awarded the Theodore Roosevelt Distinguished Service Medal in 1953. [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. She was 82. [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. William Thomas Beebe. Born in Brooklyn, New York and raised in East Orange, New Jersey, Beebe left college before obtaining a degree to work at the then newly opened New York Zoological Park, where he was given the duty of caring for the zoo's birds. Marguerite Vermilye Beebe died on Thursday, April 2, 2020, at Talbot Hospice House in Easton, MD. [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. [236], William Beebe died of pneumonia at Simla on June 4, 1962. View Source Share Save to Suggest Edits Memorial Photos Flowers Memorials Region North America USA Oklahoma Since the purpose of Kalacoon station had been to study the jungle, the jungle's destruction left Beebe with no choice but to close the station and return with its supplies to New York. [107], Beebe's position in the Zoological Society changed in 1918: He was given the title of Honorary Curator of Birds and was made the director of the newly created Department of Tropical Research. Born August 7, 1944 in Manito to Rollin A. and Rosie B. After failing to find such evidence, Heilmann ultimately rejected Beebe's Tetrapteryx hypothesis, and this remained the consensus among ornithologists for the next several decades. He was born January 23, 1941 in Toledo Ohio to Ronald Sinclair and Mary Jane (Buermile) Beebe. William D Beebe. [256], William Beebe was a pioneer in the field now known as ecology. 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'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. [105] Beebe subsequently wrote several articles describing his war experience for Scribner's Magazine and Atlantic Monthly. [187], Beebe continued to conduct marine research after 1934, but he felt that he had seen what he wanted to see using the Bathysphere and that further drives were too expensive for whatever knowledge he gained from them to be worth the cost. [89] On the other hand, some biographers have suggested that Beebe suffered a nervous breakdown during the expedition and that he may have contributed his own part to Blair's alienation. One letter from the Harvard biologist Ernst Mayr wrote that Beebe's work had been an inspiration to his own, particularly A Monograph of the Pheasants and Beebe's books about jungle wildlife.[215]. He graduated from Fremont High School in 1947, after returning from an enlistment with the U.S. Navy. [153][154] Beebe and Elswyth were married on September 22, 1927, when Beebe was 50. Anchoring his ship the Lieutenant in the harbor of Port-au-Prince, he performed over 300 helmet dives examining the area's coral reefs and classifying the fish that inhabited them. [63] However, the zoo ultimately decided in Kuser's favor, partly because the scientific papers produced by Beebe's trip to Guiana had been beneficial to the zoo's reputation. Despite their failure to obtain their most sought-after prize, the expedition still returned with 280 live birds of 51 species, 33 of which were new to the zoo, although several of these died or escaped during the long trip back to New York. [266] Some of Beebe's critics claimed that these fish were illusions resulting from condensation on the Bathysphere's window, or even that Beebe willfully made them up, although the latter would have been strongly at odds with Beebe's reputation as an honest and rigorous scientist. Beebe was reluctant to accept speaking engagements because of the effect this had on his voice, although he continued to give lectures on occasion with Jocelyn's help. He quickly distinguished himself in his work for the zoo, first with his skill in designing habitats for its bird population, and soon also with a series of research expeditions of increasing length, including an expedition around the world to document the world's pheasants. 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. Services for William "Bill" D. Beebe, age 76, of Enid, died, Sept. 4, 2020, are pending with Ladusau-Evans Funeral Home. [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. To prevent this possibility, he left all of his papers and journals to Jocelyn. Other biologists who visited to conduct studies there and exchange ideas with Beebe included myrmecologist Ted Schneirla, ethologist Konrad Lorenz, entomologist Lincoln Brower, ethologist Donald Griffin, and ornithologist David Snow. In addition to the open nature of their marriage, Elswyth described in a 1940s interview with Today's Woman magazine that she enjoyed the knowledge that Beebe was attractive to women. I was walking across our compound last month when a queen termite began building her miraculous city. [57], In February 1909, Beebe and Blair traveled to British Guiana, in the hope that with Roosevelt's support, it might be possible to establish a permanent field research station there. William Beebe was more famous in the United States than any other American naturalist before the days of television. [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. In a second study, Beebe performed the same task for a much larger area of jungle, approximately a quarter-mile (0.4 km) square. [138] In addition to his helmet dives, Beebe applied the same method of research that he had pioneered in the tropics to a small area of ocean, sailing in circles around it for ten days to document all actions and interactions of marine life within that area. [136], Anchoring near Darwin Bay, Beebe made his first attempt at studying sea animals in their native environment by descending into the ocean in a diving helmet. [129] In 1925, Beebe set out on a second Galpagos expedition, The Arcturus Oceanographic Expedition,[130][131] backed by Williams and several other donors. [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. [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. Their expedition had obtained live or stuffed specimens of nearly all the pheasants he had sought, and also produced extensive notes about their behavior. Family and friends can send flowers and/or light a candle as a loving gesture for their loved one. [191] Beebe described his two expeditions onboard the Zaca in his books Zaca Venture and The Book of Bays, in which he emphasized his concern for threatened habitats and his dismay at human destruction. Obituary of William C. Beebe. [6][7] The American Museum of Natural History, which opened the year that Beebe was born, fostered Beebe's love of nature and was an early influence on him. The reason they gave in their annual report was that the previous two seasons had produced so much material that they needed an additional year to analyze it, but in reality, this was more the result of insufficient funding as well as the unstable state of Venezuelan politics. According to the funeral home, the following services. In 1901, Beebe returned to Nova Scotia on his first expedition for the zoo, intending to collect marine animals by searching tide pools and with additional dredging. Beebe made extensive documentation of hoatzin behavior through field glasses, but their plans to capture one were foiled when they had to return home early due to Blair breaking her wrist. [167] Beebe named their vessel the Bathysphere, from the Greek prefix bathy- meaning "deep" combined with "sphere". To plant a tree in memory of David William Beebe, III, please visit Tribute Store . In recognition of the research conducted on his expeditions, he was granted honorary doctorates from Tufts and Colgate University. Bill was an avid fisherman and enjoyed the outdoors, particularly camp fires. Smith Family Funeral Home obituaries and Death Notices for the Little Rock, AR area. "William Beebe," in Tom Taylor and Michael Taylor, Hazard identification and risk assessment, This page was last edited on 16 January 2023, at 13:35. [85] Obtaining a divorce in Reno required a person to demonstrate that their spouse had committed either adultery or extreme cruelty; Blair's complaint accused Beebe of the latter,[86] claiming that during the pheasant expedition he had threatened to commit suicide by "throwing himself in the river, shooting himself through the roof of the mouth with a revolver, and by cutting his throat with a razor. He was predeceased by : his parents, Charles Beebe and Ellen Beebe. Beebe and his team began work there in 1945, staying as guests of the Venezuelan government. [260], E. O. Wilson, Sylvia Earle and Ernst Mayr have all described Beebe's work as an influence on their own choice of careers. [206] Creole Petroleum, a Venezuelan spin-off of Standard, agreed to cover the cost of the station and finished a small portion of the vast structure for Beebe and his team to use. Due to Elswyth's tendency to misrepresent her age, conflicting accounts exist of how old she was when she and Beebe were married,[155] ranging from 23[91] to 28. [265] The naming of a new species ordinarily requires obtaining and analyzing a type specimen, something which was obviously impossible from inside the Bathysphere. [261] Carson dedicated her 1951 book The Sea Around Us to Beebe, writing "My absorption in the mystery and meaning of the sea have been stimulated and the writing of this book aided by the friendship and encouragement of William Beebe. In Japan, Beebe was given two cranes by the Imperial Household in exchange for a pair of swans, which were unknown in Japan. 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. [10][11] During his high school years Beebe developed an interest in collecting animals, particularly after receiving his first gun at the age of sixteen, and trained himself in taxidermy to preserve them. [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. We are sad to announce that on November 26, 2021, at the age of 79, John William Coulter of Beebe, Arkansas passed away. "[258] Due to Beebe's renewed emphasis on field research at a time when laboratory studies were becoming the dominant trend in biology, more recent field researchers such as Jane Goodall and George Schaller are also sometimes considered his intellectual descendants. [96] During this expedition, Beebe was also amazed to discover the number and variety of organisms living under a single tree and pioneered the method of studying a small area of wilderness for an extended amount of time. An entry in Beebe's personal journal, written in a secret code that he used when describing things he wished kept secret, reads "I kissed her [Gloria] and she loves me. [71] The next ship took them to Singapore, where Beebe established a base of operations for the next stage of his expedition. [237] Both accounts agree that throughout his final years Beebe remained fond of playing practical jokes on his visitors at Simla,[237] and retained his sense of humor even within days of his death. Following his Bathysphere dives, Beebe returned to the tropics and began to focus his study on the behavior of insects. [67] From Ceylon they traveled to Calcutta, with the goal of capturing the species of pheasants which live only in the Himalayas. Beebe compared the knowledge that could be gained of the deep ocean from dredging to what a visitor from Mars could learn about a fog-shrouded earthly city by using a dredge to pick up bits of debris from a street. The same year, he was also elected a fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences. Death Notice. Meanwhile, Beebe began searching for a new tropical research station to replace Kartabo, which had fallen victim to deforestation just like Kalacoon before it. [108], The first volume of Beebe's pheasant monograph was published that fall, although the ongoing war made it unclear when the remaining three volumes would be published. 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. [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. [79] When the plague and riots had subsided, Beebe returned to China to document the local pheasant species, then made a second visit to Japan to study pheasants kept in the Imperial Preserves there. BEEBE, William Michael February 19, 1954 - August 19, 2016. Born December 7, 1930 in Dover he was a son of the late William "Earl" and Bessie Herron Beebe.An infant brother, William E. Beebe, also preceded him in death. His religion was largely the result of seeking to combine his sense of awe and wonder at the natural world with a scientific understanding of its workings. This study yielded a collection of 3,776 fish of 136 species, many of them also new to science. "[275] This animal's discovery has had the effect of resurrecting Beebe's theory that leg feathers played an important role in the origin of bird flight. [179] Barton was often resentful of this, believing Beebe to be deliberately hogging the fame. [84], In January 1913, Blair left Beebe for Reno intending to divorce him, since at this time in history it was easier to obtain a divorce in Reno than in most other areas of the United States. [280] Meanwhile, as Asa Wright's health began to fail in her old age, her friends began to fear that after her death her neighboring estate of Spring Hill might be lost to developers and established a trust to buy the estate and convert it into the Asa Wright nature center. Wedge these into crevices, and in a few days, you will have a sunken garden in a new and miraculous sense. [104] Beebe generally did not make the exact nature of his military service clear in his writings about it, although he expressed his general dismay at the realities of the war. [16], While attending Columbia, Beebe persuaded his professors to sponsor him and several fellow students taking research trips to Nova Scotia, where he continued his hobby of collecting, as well as attempting to photograph difficult-to-observe scenes of birds and other animals. [45] In its finished form it represented a new kind of nature writing in that, although it presented technical information about bird biology and evolution, it did so in a way meant to be accessible to a general audience. [195] During this time Beebe was also forming a close friendship with Winnie-the-Pooh's creator A. [4][5] Early in his life, his family moved to East Orange, New Jersey, where he began to acquire both his fascination with the natural world and his tendency to record everything he saw. [95], In 1916, Beebe traveled to Georgetown in pursuit of his earlier goal of establishing a permanent field research station in Guiana. 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. [172] Beebe and Barton made a total of 35 dives in the Bathysphere,[173] setting several consecutive world records for the deepest dive ever performed by a human. But, to the man who can see, its vines and plants form a beautiful and carefully ordered tapestry. [135] In the Pacific, they encountered a strange boundary between two currents of very different temperatures, containing a vast diversity of life on the border between the two. [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. The novel was an account of a young woman who falls in love with and eventually marries, a much older adventurer who strongly resembled Beebe. [137] Beebe continued to perform helmet dives throughout his Galpagos expedition, documenting several previously unknown sea animals. [] Without telling him so, we must take care of him."[104]. Although some sources have described him as an only child, [3] he had a younger brother named John who died in infancy. [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. 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. This did not go unnoticed by Beebe's mentor Osborn, who expressed concern about it in a letter to Madison Grant, writing "I find that he is worried and far from well. [175] A second year-long interruption occurred in 1933, and was caused in part by a lack of funds due to the Great Depression. [190] In 1937 Beebe went on a second expedition aboard the Zaca, documenting the native wildlife along the Pacific Coast from Mexico to Colombia. Visitation Thursday 6-7 pm at the funeral home. [212], In January 1950, the New York Zoological Society celebrated to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Beebe's work for them. Appalled by the destruction, Beebe finally rented his station at Nonsuch Island to military... Fish of 136 species william beebe obituary many of them also New to science his study on behavior. Her miraculous city we must take care of him. `` [ 104 ], AR area his... Famous in the field now known as ecology New York Academy of Sciences home, the services! Into crevices, and in a few days, you will have sunken... Possibility, he left all of his papers and journals to Jocelyn left all of his papers and journals Jocelyn... 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