[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. [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. William met and married Sandra K. Herring. [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. He was 73. He retired in 1996 from Quali-Chem, had also worked for DuBois Chemical, and was a milkman for Superior Dairy. [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. [177] Beebe and Barton also obtained publicity for their dives from several articles Beebe wrote describing them for National Geographic, and from an NBC radio broadcast in which Beebe's voice transmitted up the phone line from inside the Bathysphere was broadcast nationally over the radio. The last chapter was written by Blair and was an explanation of how to plan and execute a vacation in the wilderness. Their expedition had obtained live or stuffed specimens of nearly all the pheasants he had sought, and also produced extensive notes about their behavior. [147] These dives involved several technological innovations: a watertight brass box which could be used to house a camera for underwater photography, and a telephone which was incorporated into the diving helmet, allowing the diver to dictate observations to someone on the surface instead of having to take notes underwater. [210][232], Beebe remained active well into his old age. He had a total of 64 animals named after him, and he described one new species of bird and 87 species of fish (see Category:Taxa named by William Beebe). [103] With his new position, Beebe no longer had the duty of caring for the zoo's animals, freeing him to devote himself fully to his writing and research. William met and married Sandra K. Herring. William Thomas Beebe. I was walking across our compound last month when a queen termite began building her miraculous city. [114][263] This was particularly significant in the area of conservation, of which he was one of the most important early advocates. 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. October 18, 1943 - September 4, 2020. Marguerite Vermilye Beebe died on Thursday, April 2, 2020, at Talbot Hospice House in Easton, MD. [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. [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]. [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. [212], In January 1950, the New York Zoological Society celebrated to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Beebe's work for them. [58] Another goal of this expedition was to find and capture a hoatzin, a bird whose clawed wings caused it to be considered an important link in the evolution of birds from reptiles. He was predeceased by : his parents, Charles Beebe and Ellen Beebe. [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. "[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. [204], In the spring of 1944, Jocelyn Crane returned to Venezuela to search for a location for a new field station to replace the one at Caripito. We are sad to announce that on February 19, 2019, at the age of 57, William Beebe (Brookwood, Alabama) passed away. [201] Beebe and his team used this station to study the ecology of the region and recorded how its inhabitants were affected by its cycle of wet and dry seasons. BEEBE, William Michael February 19, 1954 - August 19, 2016. All a man has to do is see. 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. [114], In 1919, Osborn helped secure Beebe a new research station in Guiana to replace Kalacoon: Beebe was offered Kartabo Point, an outpost of a New York-based mining corporation. On one such occasion, when a scientist working under Beebe whispered to him that he knew it was not in fact Beebe's birthday, Beebe responded "A man should have a birthday when he needs one". Age: 88 City: Anamosa Funeral Date 10:30 a.m., Saturday, 6/5, at United Church of Christ Church, Central City. Harlow "Bill" William Beebe, age 94, of Newaygo, passed away on December 6, 2020 in Grant. 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. Service for William D. "Bill" Beebe, age 76, of Enid is Friday, September 11, 2020 at 10:00 am at Ladusau-Evans Funeral Home. He was born January 23, 1941 in Toledo Ohio to Ronald Sinclair and Mary Jane (Buermile) Beebe. During these trips, Beebe also developed an interest in dredging, the practice of using nets to haul up animals that lived deep underwater and attempting to study them before they died or disintegrated. [27] The following year he was promoted from assistant curator to the rank of a full curator, a post he held until 1918. Born August 7, 1944 in Manito to Rollin A. and Rosie B. William Beebe Obituary With heavy hearts, we announce the death of William Beebe of Enid, Oklahoma, who passed away on September 4, 2020. 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. [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. Beebe's second book, The Bird, Its Form and Function, was published in 1906. [276], Following William Beebe's death in 1962, his research station at Simla remained in operation under Jocelyn Crane's management,[277] under the new name of the William Beebe Tropical Research Station. He was born January 23, 1941 in Toledo Ohio to Ronald Sinclair and Mary Jane (Buermile) Beebe. [29][30] Blair subsequently accompanied Beebe on several of his expeditions, and as a writer herself, frequently assisted Beebe with his own writing. [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. 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. [250], Beebe had a troubled relationship with some of his superiors at the zoo, particularly Hornaday, who was resentful of Beebe's constant demands for more funding and staff, as well as the fact that as Beebe's career progressed he gradually devoted less and less time to care for the zoo itself. [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. [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. [169] The Bathysphere was lowered into the ocean using a steel cable, and a second cable carried a phone line which the Bathysphere's occupants used to communicate with the surface, as well as an electrical cable for a searchlight to illuminate animals outside the Bathysphere. 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. William worked many years in the grocery business in sales and held various managerial . [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. [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. He graduated from Fremont High School in 1947, after returning from an enlistment with the U.S. Navy. [20] In 1899, although he had completed all of the required courses for a degree in science from Columbia except for mathematics, he decided to forgo his studies in favor of an invitation from Osborn to work at the New York Zoological Park which was about to open. 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. [116] At Kartabo Beebe discovered the phenomenon known as an ant mill, a column of ants following itself in an endless loop until nearly all of them died of exhaustion. [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. Dr. William A. Beebe of Weeki Wachee, Fla., formerly of Edison, died Tuesday at his home, surrounded by his loving family. 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]. With Roosevelt's help, he secured a post-training American pilot for a flight squadron on Long Island. [94], Beebe undertook an expedition to Brazil in 1915, to capture more birds for the zoo. The first volume was highly praised by reviewers, and received the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal from the National Academy of Sciences in 1918. [53][54], At this point in his life, Beebe was forming a close friendship with then-president Theodore Roosevelt, which would last until Roosevelt's death in 1919. [31] A week after her divorce from Beebe, Blair was remarried to their next-door neighbor Robin Niles, suggesting that the true reason for the divorce may have been cuckoldry. 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. After Elswyth died in 1984, Jocelyn donated Beebe's papers to the Department of Rare Books and Special Collections at Princeton University's Firestone Library. [73] Continuing without Horsfall, Beebe and Blair traveled to Batavia in Java,[74] to the island of Madura just to the north, and to Belitung between Borneo and Sumatra. [220], Research at Simla formally began in 1950. [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. 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. 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. [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. His theory that organisms must be understood in the context of the ecosystems they inhabit was completely new for its time and has been highly influential. [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. [223] Local children periodically brought animal specimens to Beebe at Simla and asked him to classify them. 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. [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. William R Beebe age 79 of Delta, Ohio, passed away at Swanton Health care and retirement Center Sunday, October 25, 2020. [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. 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. The divorce was granted on August 29, 1913, after Blair had spent the minimum requirement of six months as a resident in Reno. [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. "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. Family and friends are welcome to leave their condolences on this memorial page and share them with the family. Elswyth explained in a magazine interview that she was uncomfortable on Beebe's expeditions, so the two of them had agreed that they would keep their careers separate from their private lives. [13], In 1896, Beebe was accepted with advanced placement to Columbia University. [278] However, because Jocelyn's research required her to travel north for extended periods, by 1965 she had little time to keep the station running. [149] Beebe provided an account of this expedition in his 1928 book Beneath Tropic Seas, which was the first of his books to receive less than enthusiastic reviews, due to its episodic structure.[150]. [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. [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. A MEMORIAL SERVICE will be held at St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church 100 Argyle Street, Regina, Saskatchewan on Thursday, May 12, 2005 at 11:00am. [160] However, Beebe's ability to research the deep ocean using these methods was constrained by the inherent limitations of dredging, which could only provide an incomplete picture of the animals living there. [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. In 1957, at the age of eighty, he was still capable of climbing slippery tree trunks to study bird nests. She was born on November 26, 1937, in Plainfield, NJ, the daughter of the late William H. Vermilye and Ruth Anderson Vermilye. "[196], Although Beebe continued to use Nonsuch Island as his base of operations throughout the 1930s, with the onset of World War II in 1939 it was announced that the ferry linking Bermuda to New York would soon be making its final run, requiring Beebe and his team to hastily abandon their station there. In response to this request, Beebe retorted: Boredom is immoral. [169] The record set by the deepest of these, to a depth of 3,028 feet (923m) on August 15, 1934, lasted until it was broken by Barton in 1949. [269], In addition to his descriptions of new taxa, the crab Leptuca beebei (Crane, 1941), commonly known as Beebe's fiddler crab, was named in his honor. Execute a vacation in the wilderness 1943 - September 4, 2020 220 ], in 1896, retorted. Eighty, he secured a post-training American pilot for a flight squadron on Long Island ] children! [ 220 ], Beebe undertook an expedition to Brazil in 1915, to capture more for! 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