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. [244] As a scientific writer who participated in both the popular and academic worlds, he occupied a similar role to the role later occupied by Stephen Jay Gould. William Beebe is regarded as one of the founders of the field of ecology, as well as one of the early 20th century's major advocates of conservation. [65] Beebe and Blair left for their expedition accompanied by Robert Bruce Horsfall, whose job would be to provide illustrations of the birds for the book that would hopefully result from this expedition. William R Beebe age 79 of Delta, Ohio, passed away at Swanton Health care and retirement Center Sunday, October 25, 2020. Realizing that the area's politics might soon put an end to their research there, in spring of 1948 Jocelyn made a side trip to Trinidad and Tobago in hope of finding a site for a research station where the politics would be more secure. 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. [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. [210][232], Beebe remained active well into his old age. [29][30] Blair subsequently accompanied Beebe on several of his expeditions, and as a writer herself, frequently assisted Beebe with his own writing. [181] Still, Beebe and Barton both had something the other needed: Beebe for his experience as a marine biologist and Barton for his mechanical skill. When he felt that the pressure of working under him had become too great, he would announce that his birthday was approaching, and his staff would have several days free from work to celebrate it. He attended and graduated from Hennessey High School. Harlow "Bill" William Beebe, age 94, of Newaygo, passed away on December 6, 2020 in Grant. To some men, the jungle is a tangled place of heat and danger. The support crew included several scientists who had worked with Beebe previously and several artists including the marine painter Harry Hoffman,[119] as well as some of Williams' friends whose inclusion was a condition for Williams' agreement to fund the expedition. [151] He later went so far as to suggest that beachfront homes would someday contain their own underwater gardens, to be experienced with the help of diving helmets: If you wish to make a garden, choose some beautiful slope or reef grotto and with a hatchet chop and pry off coral boulders with waving purple sea-plumes and golden sea-fans and great particolored anemones. Obituary of William C. Beebe. Find an obituary, get service details, leave condolence messages or send flowers or gifts in memory of a loved one. William Lee Beebe of Marietta, passed on, Friday (Aug. 2, 2013) at the young age of 30 due to injuries sustained in a motorcycle accident. [222] Insects were the focus of the scientific papers he produced during this period, marking a transition from his past areas of study into the field of entomology. As a compromise, Beebe decided to continue his marine research in Bermuda, where she and Beebe had spent their honeymoon. [245], Beebe described his religious beliefs as a combination of Presbyterianism and Buddhism. [262], By writing for a scientific as well as the popular audience, Beebe did much to make science accessible to the general public. U.S., Newspapers.com Obituary Index, 1800s-current. In 1957, at the age of eighty, he was still capable of climbing slippery tree trunks to study bird nests. [21], Osborn appointed Beebe to the position of assistant curator of ornithology. [81] Some of these pheasants, such as Sclater's impeyan or Himalayan monal, had never before been seen in the wild by Americans or Europeans. [236], William Beebe died of pneumonia at Simla on June 4, 1962. William D Beebe. 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. [268] One possibility is that although these animals indeed exist, so much remains to be discovered about life in the deep ocean that these animals have yet to be seen by anyone other than him. [140] Observing the eruption from his ship for another two days, as well as again at a later point in the expedition, Beebe recorded how numerous birds and marine animals were killed after either failing to escape the lava or drawing too close to it in an attempt to scavenge other animals that had died. [90], Blair's departure came as a shock to Beebe, and he was severely depressed for more than a year afterward. 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. The goal of this expedition was to study the area's undersea fauna utilizing dredging and helmet diving, and Beebe and his team were surprised by the diversity of animals that they encountered there. [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. Following Beebe's death, Jocelyn succeeded him as the director of the Department of Tropical Research and continued to run the Simla station along with the rest of Beebe's former staff.[240]. [255] Henry Fairfield Osborn Jr. recounts one incident in which Beebe turned down a scientist who wished to work with him when the scientist described boredom with his current duties as one of his reasons for requesting this. [259] Beebe was also a pioneer in the field of oceanography, setting a precedent with his Bathysphere dives which many other researchers would follow. [12] Beebe's first article was published while he was still in high school, a description of a bird called a brown creeper, which appeared in the January 1895 issue of the magazine Harper's Young People. 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. Beebe's research at Simla continued until his death from pneumonia in 1962 at the age of 84. [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. [17] Beebe never applied to receive a degree from Columbia,[18] although years later he was granted honorary doctorates from both Tufts and Colgate University. [97] Soon after Beebe and his researchers moved into the plantation house, which was known by the name of Kalacoon, they were paid a visit by Theodore Roosevelt and his family. [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. [270], Along with his analysis of pheasant phylogeny and his studies of life in the Galpagos Islands, Beebe regarded one of his most important contributions to the field of evolutionary biology to be his hypothesis that the ancestors of birds passed through what he referred to as a Tetrapteryx stage, with wings on both their front and hind limbs. [31][40] Beebe's first book, titled Two Bird Lovers in Mexico, was an account of this expedition. 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. Please accept Echovita's sincere condolences. [62] Hornaday strongly objected to this proposal, describing Kuser as an "evil genius" who was attempting to steal Beebe away from his duties at the zoo. [139], While anchored off the Galpagos, Beebe and his crew noticed volcanic activity on Albemarle Island, and set out to investigate it. Family and friends can send flowers and/or light a candle as a loving gesture for their loved one. Although this evolutionary model is now taken for granted, in William Beebe's time it was a novel idea. [66], After crossing the Atlantic Ocean on the RMS Lusitania to London, where they gathered the supplies they would need for their expedition, Beebe and his team traveled across the Mediterranean Sea to Egypt, through the Suez Canal, and across the Indian Ocean to Ceylon, where they began their task of documenting the native wildfowl. Meanwhile, Beebe began searching for a new tropical research station to replace Kartabo, which had fallen victim to deforestation just like Kalacoon before it. [38] Although the purpose of the expedition was to discover, identify and collect Mexico's birds,[39] it has also been described as yet another honeymoon between him and Blair. [189] Shortly after returning, Beebe set out on a longer expedition to the waters around Baja California, financed by the Californian businessman Templeton Crocker on board his yacht the Zaca. [220], Research at Simla formally began in 1950. 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. [236] However, Beebe's personal physician A. E. Hill provides a differing account, stating that Beebe remained lucid and able to move about without assistance almost until his last day, apart from the periods of time during which his "mango mouth" temporarily slurred his speech. [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. [99] During his first season at Kalacoon in 1916, Beebe brought back 300 living specimens for the zoo. 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