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'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. As a compromise, Beebe decided to continue his marine research in Bermuda, where she and Beebe had spent their honeymoon. In recognition of the research conducted on his expeditions, he was granted honorary doctorates from Tufts and Colgate University. [226][227] Jocelyn accompanied him on this expedition for the purpose of documenting Asia's fiddler crabs. Elswyth, who was most content in temperate environments, began searching for a home in New England where she could continue her writing. Beebe and his team began work there in 1945, staying as guests of the Venezuelan government. Although it was intended as an expedition for the zoo, Beebe described it as "our third honeymoon this year". [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. [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. [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. [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. Age: 88 City: Anamosa Funeral Date 10:30 a.m., Saturday, 6/5, at United Church of Christ Church, Central City. In return, Beebe would pay for other expenses such as chartering a ship to raise and lower the sphere, and as the owner of the sphere, Barton would accompany Beebe on his expeditions in it. [127] Beebe continued to battle depression during this trip to Kartabo, both over his earlier loss of Blair, and over the death of his mother Nettie, who had died shortly before the beginning of the expedition. 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. [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. He was 69 years old and. Charles William Beebe (/bibi/ BEE-bee; July 29, 1877 June 4, 1962)[2] was an American naturalist, ornithologist, marine biologist, entomologist, explorer, and author. 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. [105] Beebe subsequently wrote several articles describing his war experience for Scribner's Magazine and Atlantic Monthly. Anchoring in a small cove, Beebe and his assistant John Tee-Van searched for an active crater where they could observe the eruption and were nearing exhaustion by the time they found one. Arrangements entrusted to Regina Funeral Home (306) 789-8850. [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 at age 18, at his home in East Orange Charles William Beebe was born in Brooklyn, New York, son of the newspaper executive Charles Beebe. And when nerves have cried for a time "enough" and an unsteady hand threatens to turn a joystick into a signpost to Charon, the mind seeks ameliorationsome symbol of worthy content and peaceand for my part, I turn with all desire to the jungles of the tropics. Explore Life Stories, Offer Condolences & Send Flowers. [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. [23] Beebe placed much importance on the birds being given as much space as possible, and proposed the building of a "flying cage" the size of a football field. [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. In response to this request, Beebe retorted: Boredom is immoral. As he observed the crater, Beebe realized that the air surrounding it was filled with noxious gases, and narrowly avoided suffocation before staggering away from it. Family and friends are welcome to leave their condolences on this memorial page and share them with the family. [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. [61], In December 1909, businessman and philanthropist Anthony R. Kuser proposed to the zoo that Beebe be allowed to go on a voyage around the world to document the world's pheasants, which would be financed by Kuser. The first issue of the journal contained twenty papers, ten of which were written by Beebe, and two more of which were jointly written by him and Lee Saunders Crandall, the zoo's assistant curator of birds. [49] In 1906 Beebe presented his own collection, which had grown to 990 specimens during his earlier years as a collector, as a gift to the zoo for educational and research purposes. [19], In November 1897, Frank Chapman sponsored Beebe to become an associate member of the American Ornithologists' Union, and the following month Beebe gave his first professional lecture on ornithology to a society called Uncle Clarence's Bergen Point Culture Club. Beebe described his idea in a 1915 paper published in Zoologica, titled "A Tetrapteryx Stage in the Ancestry of Birds". [203] Although Beebe's research at Caripito was productive, he felt that the extremity of its wet-dry cycle made it impractical as a research station,[204] and the expanding oil operations in the region were in danger of destroying the local environment. He graduated from Fremont High School in 1947, after returning from an enlistment with the U.S. Navy. [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. [70] Horsfall rejoined them in Calcutta, from which they sailed to Indonesia. [72], The expedition's next destination was Sarawak, on the island of Borneo. [205], Rancho Grande was located at a mountain pass in a branch of the Andes known as the Venezuelan Coastal Range, which was an important migration route for butterflies, and the station proved very lucrative in the study of insects. 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. Although some sources have described him as an only child, [3] he had a younger brother named John who died in infancy. [35], By the end of 1903, at the age of 26, Beebe had published more than thirty-four articles and photographs in the past year. [220][223] In honor of his lifetime of work as a naturalist, Beebe was awarded the Theodore Roosevelt Distinguished Service Medal in 1953. [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. He was born in. [235], In an account of his final meeting with Beebe, Henry Fairfield Osborn, Jr. describes how during Beebe's last few years he gradually succumbed to illness, eventually becoming nearly immobile and incapable of speech. Beebe admired Roosevelt's skill as a field naturalist as well as his advocacy of conservation, and Roosevelt's fame made his support highly valuable in Beebe's scientific endeavors. Beebe had far more field experience than either of the two others accompanying him on the expedition, G. Inness Hartley and Herbert Atkins, making this his introduction to the role of a mentor. 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. All a man has to do is see. Beebe and Barton made a deal: Barton would pay for the sphere and all of the other equipment to go with it. William Beebe Obituary With heavy hearts, we announce the death of William Beebe of Enid, Oklahoma, who passed away on September 4, 2020. [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. [207] During his work at Rancho Grande, Beebe broke his leg in a fall from a ladder, and the forced immobility which resulted from having his leg in a cast presented him with a new opportunity for observing the area's wildlife. All about us, nature puts on the most thrilling adventure stories ever created, but we have to use our eyes. The Galpagos animals generally showed no fear of humans, causing the team to have a high degree of success at capturing live specimens for the zoo. Family and friends can send flowers and/or light a candle as a loving gesture for their loved one. [139], While anchored off the Galpagos, Beebe and his crew noticed volcanic activity on Albemarle Island, and set out to investigate it. Barton's design called for a spherical vessel, which was the strongest possible shape for resisting high pressure. We would not have been human if we had refused to recognize omens. Charles William Beebe was born in Brooklyn, New York, son of the newspaper executive Charles Beebe. 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]. [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. [13], In 1896, Beebe was accepted with advanced placement to Columbia University. Visitors who recognized these characters as Milne's creations were greeted by Beebe with enthusiasm, while those who did not recognize them were just endured by Beebe until they left. [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. [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. [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. [44] This book was a reworking of a manuscript that Beebe had submitted to Henry Holt in 1902, but which Holt had asked him to expand into a major work on birds. To plant a tree in memory of William D Beebe, please visit Tribute Store . [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. William R. "Bill" Beebe, 78, of Dover died Tuesday, May 19, 2009 at Union Hospital with complications of a long term illness. 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]. [272] Beebe, however, continued to advance his Tetrapteryx hypothesis as late as the 1940s. "[185][186] It is unclear whether Elswyth knew of Beebe's affair with Gloria, but if she did she appears to not have minded it. Roosevelt in turn admired Beebe's writing and his respect for the natural world. [211] Beebe described his experiences at Rancho Grande in his 1949 book High Jungle, which was the last of Beebe's major books. He was born on February 26, 1926 to Gerald and Nora (Curtice) Beebe in Fremont, Michigan. 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. [121], Beebe's first expedition to the Galpagos lasted twenty days, broken into two ten-day periods, between which the Noma was forced to return to Panama for fresh water and coal. In 1928 Beebe and Tee-Van published an illustrated and annotated list of 270 such species, which was expanded in 1935 bringing the total to 324. [28] He then went on to serve as an honorary curator from 1919 to 1962. With the help of a letter of recommendation from Roosevelt, he was given the duty of flying aerial photography planes over German gun emplacements. During this expedition Beebe captured 40 live birds for the zoo, belonging to 14 different species. He attended and graduated from Hennessey High School. [195] During this time Beebe was also forming a close friendship with Winnie-the-Pooh's creator A. [245], Beebe described his religious beliefs as a combination of Presbyterianism and Buddhism. He was born January 23, 1941 in Toledo Ohio to Ronald Sinclair and Mary Jane (Buermile) Beebe. 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. [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. William Thomas Beebe, who retired last year as board chairman of Delta Air Lines, died of a heart attack Saturday after surgery at Doctors Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. [227], During Beebe's later years, Simla was an important gathering point for researchers in many other areas of biology. 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. William C. Beebe, 49, passed away peacefully at Neighborhood Hospice in West Chester, PA on September 23, 2012. [178], Although Beebe attempted to ensure that Barton would receive credit as the Bathysphere's inventor and Beebe's fellow diver, the popular media tended to ignore Barton and pay attention only to Beebe. During the course of his expeditions, Beebe gradually developed an interest in marine biology, ultimately leading to his 1930s dives in the Bathysphere, along with its inventor, Otis Barton, off the coast of Bermuda. [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. Beebe returned to Rancho Grande in 1948, where he completed several technical papers about the migration patterns of birds and insects, as well as a comprehensive study of the area's ecology which he coauthored with Jocelyn Crane. 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. [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. [209], Although Beebe and his team enjoyed rewarding seasons at Rancho Grande in 1945 and 1946, they did not return there in 1947. William Beebe's passing on Wednesday, November 23, 2022 has been publicly announced by Strano and Feeley Family Funeral Home in Newark, DE. Services for William "Bill" D. Beebe, age 76, of Enid, died, Sept. 4, 2020, are pending with Ladusau-Evans Funeral Home. "[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. No, I don't want any bored men around me. In 1923, Harrison Williams agreed to finance such an expedition, and Beebe was provided with a 250-foot (76m) steam yacht called the Noma for this purpose along with a support crew. Leave a sympathy message to the family on the memorial page of William Beebe to pay them a last tribute. View Obituary & Service Information [21], Osborn appointed Beebe to the position of assistant curator of ornithology. [71] By the time they left Sarawak, the conflict between Beebe and Horsfall had grown to such a degree that Beebe decided Horsfall was endangering the expedition and must be sent home. To the family would not have been human if we had refused to recognize omens and Beebe had their... 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