Mice in the freezer, owls on the porch : the lives of naturalists Frederick & Frances Hamerstrom / Helen McGavran Corneli ; foreword by George Archibald.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Corneli, Helen McGavran.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Naturalists--United States--Biography.

Naturalists.

Conservationists--United States--Biography.

Conservationists.

Hamerstrom, Frederick.

Hamerstrom, Frances, 1907-1998.

Hamerstrom, Frances.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (364 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Madison, Wis. : University of Wisconsin Press, c2002.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Mice in the Freezer, Owls on the Porch is in many ways a love story-about a quiet scientist and his flamboyant wife, but also about their passions for hunting, for wild lands, and for the grouse and raptor species that they were instrumental in saving from destruction. From the papers and letters of Frederick and Frances Hamerstrom, the reminiscences of contemporaries, and her own long friendship with this extraordinary couple who were her neighbors, Helen Corneli draws an intimate picture of Fran and "Hammy" from childhood through the genesis and maturation of a romantic, creative, and scientific relationship. Following the Hamerstroms as they give up a life of sophisticated convention and comfort for the more "civilized" (as Aldo Leopold would have it) pleasures of living and conducting on-the-spot research into diminishing species, Corneli captures the spirit of the Hamerstroms, their profession, and the natural and human environments in which they worked. A nuanced account of the labors, adventures, and achievements that distinguished the Hamerstroms over the years-and that inspired a generation of naturalists-this book also provides a dramatic account of conservation history over the course of the twentieth century, particularly in Wisconsin during the eventful years from the 1920s through the 1970s.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

Foreword by George Archibald

Acknowledgments

1 Prologue

2 The Complexities of Childhood

3 Self-Discovery and Love

4 Students, Teachers, and New Horizons

5 Conservation Beginnings in a Midwestern Appalachia

6 Enter Leopold and the Chickens

7 An Interruption: World War II

8 The Action: Postwar Scientific Solidarity

9 The Return: Deer and a Decision

10 The Setting, the Task

11 Booming Chickens and a Land Boom

12 The Prairie Chicken War

13 Hamerstroms' Kingdom: The Complexities of Success

14 A Naturalist Family

15 Of Hawks, Humans, and Freedom

16 Free at Last

17 The Making of a Legend

18 Death of a Biologist

19 Fran

20 A Postscript

Notes

Index.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786612269097

9780299180935

029918093X

9781282269095

1282269097

OCLC:

646696495