From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 1996:

Roger Tory Peterson, 87, whose
field guides made birdwatching accessible to
millions, died July 28 at his home in Old
Lyme, Connecticut. Born in Jamestown,
New York, where he later founded the Roger
Tory Peterson Institute of Natural History,
Peterson became obsessed with birds at age 11
when his teacher, Blanche Hornbeck, started a
Junior Audubon Club. The prevailing method
of ornithology was then to shoot birds and
study their corpses. Objecting, Peterson saved
his earnings as a newspaper boy to buy a camera,
then demonstrated the advantages of photographing
birds instead. As color photography
had not yet been developed, Peterson
took up painting and drawing to fully illustrate
his discoveries. Publishers insisted his
first pocket-sized Field Guide to the Birds
would flop, but Houghton-Mifflin finally took
a chance on it in 1934. The initial guide covered
only birds native to the eastern United
States. Peterson soon produced a companion
guide covering birds of the western U.S. The
two guides have now sold more than seven
million copies in four editions. Peterson was
working on new updates at his death. In all,
Peterson authored or edited nearly 50 books––
and, though he considered himself chiefly a
painter, did pioneering field research on the
effects of the pesticide DDT for the U.S. Air
Force, late in World War II, which contributed
to the 1972 U.S. ban on DDT. The
ban is credited with saving many birds from
extinction. A longtime supporter of Friends of
Animals, Peterson lent his influence to campaigns
against hunting, trapping, and especially
the killing of feral mute swans, whom
he argued were no threat to native bird life.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, August/September 1996:

Mollie Beatty, 49, died of brain
cancer on June 27 in Townsend, Vermont,
three weeks after resigning as U.S. Interior
Secretary due to her illness. Appointed in
1993, Beatty was the first female Interior
Secretary, and the first non-hunter. Only
weakly backed by the White House, Beatty
nonetheless vigorously defended the Marine
Mammal Protection Act, Endangered
Species Act, and Yellowstone wolf reintroduction
against a hostile Congress, taking
time out to personally rub cool water on one
hot wolf’s belly. “Any day I can touch a
wild wolf is a good day,” she said

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, July 1996:

Ellen Porter, 80, died June 4 in
Rutland, Vermont. Porter graduated c u m
laude from Syracuse University and began
a career as a dietician in 1937, spending
1939-1942 at the U.S. Army Pine Camp
Hospital in Watertown, New York.
Married to Lt. Jg. George T. Hollrock in
1942, she changed careers after his 1943
death, running a book store 1944-1978.
She married Arthur B. Porter in 1968; he
died in 1978. With Olive Smith, she
cofounded the Rutland County Humane
Society in 1959, serving as treasurer until
1976 and remaining on the board of directors
until 1991. She also organized the formation
of the Addison County Humane
Society, serving on that board; was a
board member of the Vermont Federation
of Humane Societies; and was past president
of the New England Federation of
Humane Societies. “In the 1970s,”
remembered the Rutland Herald, “Mrs.
Porter was instrumental in updating the
laws for animal cruelty.” Added Rutland
animal control officer Craig Petrie, “Ellen
Porter was responsible for getting a building
just for animals built in 1968. She
helped update and support my animal control
program, which I started in 1979.”

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 1996:

Garth Williams, 84, illustrator
of the E.B. White storybooks Stuart Little
(1945) and Charlotte’s Web (1952), died
May 8 at home in Guanajuato, Mexico.
Raised on a New Jersey farm, Williams
was not an outspoken animal advocate; but
his drawings for Charlotte’s Web, with his
daughter Fiona as the model for Fern, the
girl who saved the runt pig Wilbur, have
helped influence generations of children to
think more kindly of spiders––and think
twice about eating pigs. Williams’ book
The Rabbits’ Wedding (1958) depicted the
marriage of a white rabbit and a black rabbit––earning
the denunciation of the White
Citizens Council of Alabama, and removal
from general circulation by the Alabama
Public Library Service Division.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, May 1996:

Lacey, age 8, female Irish
wolfhound belonging to Boston Globe pet
columnist Vicki Croke, the inspiration for
many of Croke’s columns, was euthanized
at Croke’s request on March 29, to end
incurable suffering from osteosarcoma.
“When you first met the 140-pound Lacey,”
Croke remembered, “one of our dearest
friends said, you’d think ‘Wow! What a
huge dog,’ but soon she seemed just like a
funny-shaped person. Only better. A
friend’s two-year-old son once sat feeding
Lacey cookies. After about the fifth, he
decided he wanted it back and reached into
Lacey’s huge mouth, practically up to his
armpit, and retrieved it. Lacey would
never hurt anyone––just ask our burglar.”

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1996:

Dick Bromley, 75, a longtime
docent for the Bridgeport Zoo, died on
January 20 from complications of prostate
cancer at home in Monroe, Connecticut. A
self-employed consulting engineer, involved
in designing the Hubbel Space Telescope,
Bromley was active in many community
activities, but animals were from boyhood
his most enduring interest. Bromley and his
wife Priscilla, who survives him, were
active participants in the1991-1992 A N IMAL
PEOPLE feral cat rescue project, caring
for seven outdoor cats in addition to their
own five pet cats, four of whom were adopted
through the project. All of the cats remain
alive and well, and Mrs. Bromley continues
to attend them.

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 1996:

Nancy Sue Clark, 71, of South
Bend, Indiana, a frequent contributor of photographs
to ANIMAL PEOPLE and president
of the Coalition of Hoosiers Encouraging
Ethical Treatment of Animals, died January 5
of an apparent aneurism as she drove to a
medical appointment after mailing us her last
packet of photos. Born in Ohio, raised in
Detroit, Clark (then Nancy Sue Tarbell)
began her career in activism in 1943, as a
member of the Detroit Interracial Committee,
working to peaceably resolve issues that had
sparked race riots earlier in the year. Earning
a degree in sociology from Wayne State
University, Clark worked with welfare children
in Detroit and Pittsburgh, served with
the American Red Cross in Johnstown,
Pennsylvania, and after marriage to Robert
Thomas Clark in 1952, spent nearly 40 years
as a child welfare caseworker in South Bend.
Also active for animals throughout her life,
Sue Clark volunteered at the Orphan Animal
Care Shelter in South Bend until it closed,
and was vice president of the Indiana
Campaign for Animal Welfare, a forerunner
to CHEETA. The South Bend Tribune
recalled that she personally paid for anti-fur
newspaper ads. The day before her death, she
met with Indiana officials at the statehouse to
urge the use of immunocontraception to stabilize
deer populat ions in state parks. “Sue was
in great spirits on our return home,” remembered
longtime friend Kaye Bauer, “talking
about plans for letters she would write and
activities to be organized. The day was cold
and blustery, but we were thrilled by a line of
about a dozen whitetails crossing a snowy
meadow. Sue had a marvelous sense of
humor, was compassionate always, but had a
feisty sparkle in her eye. As a friend stated at
her funeral, ‘Sue was loved and respected by
almost everyone, except by a few people who
wrote nasty replies to her letters about deer.’”

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, January/February 1996:

Sonia Cortis, 83, died in her sleep on December 12. Born in
Yalta, daughter of a diplomat, she became a successful cabaret singer.
She sang from her teens until the early 1960s and performed with Edith
Piaff and for royalty. In her later years, this dedicated friend of all animals
worked as a waitress and restaurant manager, spreading the good
word to staff and customers. And with her bullhorn, the former
chanteuse energized activists every weekend for 78 weeks in a campaign
to end the cat sex experiments at the American Museum of Natural
History, the first public protest successful in saving animals from suffering
in a U.S. laboratory. She dedicated her life to helping humans and
animals, and left her body to science. We’ll miss her.
––Henry Spira

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From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 1995:

Jo Stallard, 74, remembered by
the San Jose Mercury-News as “one of the
most determined environmentalists, conservationists,
and animal rights activists ever to
grace the Monterey Peninsula,” died
November 10 of cancer in a Monterey hospice.
Stallard “rarely let anything distract her from
her commitment to animals,” the Mercury-
News continued, “which she said deserved
first consideration because they preceded
humans on the planet. She always had an
SPCA-special dog or cat in her home, often a
canary, too,” and a tortoise, E.T., with a
warning sign in her window: “Patrolled by
attack-tortoise.” An officer of the Monterey
County SPCA, Stallard also co-founded the
Animal Rights Council and at various times
led the Monterey Peninsula Chapter of the
National Audubon Society, the Big Sur

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