Home
Structural Products & Services, Stairlifts
Furniture, Clocks,
Accessories
Antiques, Folk Art,
Fine Art, Auction Houses
From the Editor
LETTER TO NELLIE TEALE
You passed away in 1993, so it seems odd to write you now.
Back in 1977 I happened on a copy of Edwin Way Teale’s A NATURALIST BUYS AN OLD FARM, in which Edwin gave you equal credit for everything he had accomplished in his life. In the book, equal space was devoted to your explorations as to his. I was so gripped with the book that when I happened to be in the Quiet Corner of Connecticut in 1990 I sought out Trail Wood, the old farm Edwin and yourself had made home. Edwin had died in 1980 and I figured you had left the farm.
When I pulled into the driveway I was shocked when you came out to greet me. You invited me into the house where we commenced a long talk as if we had known each other forever. The following summer I stopped back again, when you chided me for not writing to you.
Since that time Trail Wood has become an Audubon Sanctuary, as you and Edwin planned. The both of you are buried in North Cemetery, not far from Trail Wood. One thing I have learned in recent years is that your only child, David, was killed in Germany in the last days of WWII. Edwin never talked about the grief both of you felt. He did not feel that his personal life was public property. Instead, he was careful to count the consecutive calls given by a chipmunk without pausing, 536 times to be exact.
Reading Edwin again, remembering you, I can’t help but throwing this message up in the sky.
Max H. Peters
Publisher and Editor
Header photo by Skip Broom, HP Broom Housewright, Inc.