Teale, Nellie (1900–1993)

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Teale, Nellie (1900–1993)

American naturalist who collaborated with her husband Edwin Way Teale on a series of nature books that have been acclaimed as modern classics. Born Nellie Imogene Donovan in September 13, 1900, in Colorado Springs, Colorado; died of colon cancer in Windham, Connecticut, on July 18, 1993; educated at Earlham College, Richmond, Indiana; married Edwin Way Teale (1899–1980, the naturalist author), in 1923; children: David Allen Teale (killed in action in Germany, 1945).

Nellie Teale was an important contributor to the work of her husband, famous nature writer Edwin Way Teale. In a marriage of 57 years, the Teales became a powerful team, traveling great distances to observe and immerse themselves in the natural world, then creating some of the best books ever written in America on nature and its countless facets of beauty and mystery. Nellie Imogene Donovan was born in September 1900 in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and met Edwin Way Teale in the early 1920s, when both were English majors at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana. "One afternoon, we were driving to Indianapolis," said Nellie, "and Edwin noticed the beautiful sunset. I had never been out with a man that had ever paid any attention to sunsets." Married in 1923, the couple moved to Wichita, Kansas, where Edwin taught public speaking and coached debating at Friends University. That year, they moved to New York City, where he received a master's degree in English from Columbia University. In 1925, the Teales also had their only child, a son they named David Allen. From 1928 through 1941, while Nellie was a mother and homemaker, Edwin worked as a feature writer on the staff of Popular Science Monthly, writing articles on all aspects of science and technology.

The Teales developed an insect garden near their home in Baldwin, on Long Island, which became the basis for Edwin's first book, 1937's Grassroot Jungles. A nature book of photographs with an accompanying text, Grassroot Jungles received a positive response from readers and critics because of its imaginative depiction of insects' lives, as well as the philosophical implications that humans might possibly gain from an encounter with this unusual sector of the natural world. In 1939 and 1940, three additional books by Edwin were released, The Junior Book of Insects, The Boys' Book of Photography, and The Golden Throng, the latter being a popular investigation of bees. Although he was 42 years old and not wealthy, in October 1941 Edwin resigned from the staff of Popular Science Monthly to begin living the sometimes perilous life of a freelance writer. Nellie became an essential participant in his work, as his researcher and in-house critic. Edwin sold articles and photographs to major periodicals, including The Atlantic Monthly and the Illustrated London News. In 1942, he published New Horizons, the story of the origin, development and purposes of their insect garden. With this volume, the Teale horizon expanded beyond insects, to include other fields of nature.

On March 16, 1945, during World War II, the couple's only child, David Allen Teale, was killed in combat while on reconnaissance patrol near the Moselle River in Germany. He was only 19 when he died, and his loss brought immeasurable grief to his parents. After "the awful years" of the war, Nellie and Edwin decided in early 1947 to travel from southern Florida to Maine in order to record the unfolding of spring, hoping to gather sufficient material to turn into a book. They began their trip in January in sub-tropical Florida and followed the spring north to the Canadian border, where after 17,000 miles of zig-zagging they reached their goal on June 21, 1947. When the book finally appeared in print in 1951 as North with the Spring, it turned out to be the first of a quartet of books on the different seasons across the American continent.

Three more books in the series, which ultimately came to be known as "The American Seasons," were researched and written over the next 15 years, with Nellie helping with editing. For Autumn across America (1956), the Teales traveled about 20,000 miles from Cape Cod to California. Journey into Summer (1960) was based on 19,000 miles covered in three months between New Hampshire's Franconia Notch and the summit of Pike's Peak in Colorado. The final book in the quartet, Wandering through Winter, appeared in 1965, by which time the couple had traveled 76,000 miles across the United States. Wandering through Winter, which won the 1966 Pulitzer Prize, was dedicated to the memory of David Allen Teale.

In 1959, the Teales sold their Long Island home and purchased a farm outside the village of Hampton, Connecticut. The couple lived in an 1806 Colonial Cape Cod house with pegged oak and chestnut beams and three huge fireplaces, on a property that was initially 79 acres of woods, pastures, and swamps. The land also contained two brooks, a mile of trails through the woods, and a waterfall. The Teales cut trails into the woods for observing birds and animals and named their property Trail Wood. Nellie was known to be a keen observer of the natural world, and it was said that she knew more about birds than her husband did. Later, they purchased additional acreage that brought the total property to 140 acres. The additional land boasted two more swamps, a cranberry bog, and an old carriage road. The land's varied topography inspired the Teales to create names evoking its different features, such as Far North Woods, Seven Springs Swamp, Witch Hazel Hill, Firefly Meadow, and Starfield.

According to Nellie, the spot she and her husband treasured the most was simply named Pond. Modeled after Walden Pond, it was excavated in the spring and summer of 1963 just southwest of their house, along a brook and natural hollow that contained a red maple swamp. As the pond began to fill, the couple watched a progression of plant, insect, and other wildlife settle into its new habitat. Cattails clustered along the banks, whirligig beetles and dragonflies traced zigzag patterns across the surface of the water. American bitterns and Canada geese rested at the pond for days at a time while on their southward migration. In his 1974 book A Naturalist Buys an Old Farm, Edwin described how "a smaller relative of the mink, a long-tailed weasel, made its appearance beneath the apple tree one day when Nellie was sitting motionless, absorbed in the activity of water spiders." Among Nellie Teale's many discoveries in the woods were beavers eagerly building a dam, which in time would serve to control the water level of the Pond. Fascinated by the activities they observed there, the Teales built a small screened-in house on the water's edge, where they sometimes picnicked and where Nellie read aloud the classics or mystery novels to her husband until the sun set. Years after Edwin's death in October 1980, Nellie Teale commented about her marriage and the 21 years they spent together at Trail Wood, "We always got along beautifully."

Shortly before he died, Edwin Way Teale arranged with the Connecticut Audubon Society to perpetuate Trail Wood as a wildlife sanctuary. (Nellie would also donate many of their books and letters to the Homer Babbidge Library of the University of Connecticut, which has a collection of Teale papers.) With Nellie having been granted life tenure in the farmhouse, the Trail Wood Audubon Sanctuary began to function in the early 1980s as one of the few remaining examples of an old Connecticut farm preserve. The administration of the property became the shared responsibility of the Connecticut Audubon Society and the Friends of Trail Wood, a group of local naturalists. Until her death in the summer of 1993, Nellie Teale continued to live in the old farmhouse at Trail Wood. To her last days, she remained a sharp-eyed naturalist and researcher who could mimic bird songs as well as identify mushrooms, plants, and insects. In her late 80s, she still enjoyed planting a wildflower garden with 25 varieties next to a sundial and the 100-year-old peony bush that had belonged to her husband's grandmother. Soft spoken and physically frail, with clear blue eyes and snow white hair, she could no longer walk the trails as she and her husband had once done, but in the evenings Nellie still relished sitting in the shade of a hickory tree in her back yard, listening avidly to the "warbling twitter of the woodcocks."

sources:

Buell, Lawrence. "The Thoreauvian Pilgrimage: The Structure of an American Cult," in American Literature. Vol. 61, no. 2. May 1989, pp. 175–199.

Cevasco, George A. "Teale, Edwin Way," in Keir B. Sterling, et al., eds., Biographical Dictionary of American and Canadian Naturalists and Environmentalists. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1997, pp. 769–770.

Crist, Eileen. Images of Animals: Anthropomorphism and Animal Mind. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1999.

——. "Naturalists' Portrayals of Animal Life: Engaging the Verstehen Approach," in Social Studies of Science. Vol. 26, no. 4. November 1996, pp. 799–838.

Dodd, Edward. Of Nature, Time, and Teale: A Biographical Sketch of Edwin Way Teale. NY: Dodd, Mead, 1966.

Hinchman, Lewis P., and Sandra K. Hinchman. "'Deep Ecology' and Revival of Natural Right," in Western Political Quarterly. Vol. 42, no. 3. September 1989, pp. 201–228.

Howe, Marvin. "Nellie I. Teale, 92; Naturalist Assisted In Acclaimed Books," in The New York Times Biographical Service. Vol. 24. July 1993, p. 1014.

Lawrence, Elizabeth Atwood. "Symbol of a Nation: The Bald Eagle in American Culture," in Journal of American Culture. Vol. 13, no. 1. Spring 1990, pp. 63–69.

Miller, David Stuart. "An Unfinished Pilgrimage: Edwin Way Teale and American Nature Writing," Ph.D. dissertation, University of Minnesota, 1982.

"Nellie Teale; Established Wildlife Sanctuary," in The Hartford Courant. July 20, 1993, p. B11.

Rierden, Andi. "The View from Trail Wood in Hampton: Author's Beloved Fields Remain His Memorial," in The New York Times. July 22, 1990, section 12 (Connecticut), p. 2.

Teale, Edwin Way. The American Seasons. 4 vols. NY: Dodd, Mead, 1981.

——. Circle of the Seasons: The Journal of a Naturalist's Year. NY: Dodd, Mead, 1953.

——. Dune Boy: The Early Years of a Naturalist. Rep. ed. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1986.

——. A Naturalist Buys an Old Farm. NY: Dodd, Mead, 1974.

——. A Walk Through the Year. NY: Dodd, Mead, 1978.

Thorson, Robert M., and S.L. Harris. "How Natural are Inland Wetlands? An Example from the Trail Wood Audubon Sanctuary in Connecticut, USA," in Environmental Management. Vol. 15, no. 5. September–October 1991, pp. 675–687.

Wilson, David S. "The Flying Spider," in Journal of the History of Ideas. Vol. 32, no. 3. July–September 1971, pp. 447–458.