bigred

Grace A. Peterson

from Smithsonian Institution

• Pixel Wrangler said:

  >>Grace A. Peterson s/b Petersen.
  
  Grace Agnes Petersen (d.1960) was a mycologist, and an instructor in Natural History. In 1926 she received a B.S., and in 1937 an M.S. from Cornell University. [1]
  
  In addition to her work at Cornell, she worked with the Botany Department of the Brooklyn Institute of Arts & Sciences, and also did freelance botanical illustration for scientific papers published in botanical journals. Along with her professional papers, Grace also published a book of poems, Sea Foam, which she also illustrated. [2] [3]
  
  Perhaps her greatest love was teaching nature study to city children. She would lead occasional botanical and zoological trips, as well as nature hikes and adventures in New York Parks on some Saturdays.
  
  From 1944-1960 she spent thirteen summers as a nature counselor at Northrop Camp, in the Berkshires (Massachusetts) which provides New York City girls and boys, whose families could not otherwise afford camp, the opportunity to learn about nature and the environment. She wrote a touching article entitled “New Horizons”, about her beliefs in teaching Nature Study to city children, as well as her experiences at Northrop, in the May/June, 1945, issue of Audubon Magazine.
   
                                  Below: A happy group of campers
                                  at Camp Northrop. Grace Petersen
                                  is perched in a tree above them.
                               
   
  Decades later these campers would write on a tribute page to “Doc Pete” (as she was affectionately known) what those early experiences meant: [4]

  “Doc Pete inspired my interests in biology, and this led directly to my college major (biochemical sciences) and then medicine ...”   — A camper, 1957, now a primary care physician living in Berkeley, California.
   
  “Each camper had a nature project for the summer. My first project was on useful wild plants and my second . . . was on identifying wild flowers. These projects extended into a lifelong hobby and career. Dr. Grace Petersen was the very dedicated nature director during my camp days.  She . . . was the first person to show me a slime mold . . . Later in college I found that one of my biology teachers, . . . did his research on slime molds. Since my curiosity was already aroused, I carried out undergraduate research with him, got a Master's in botany, and a Ph.D. in microbial genetics . . . ”  — A camper, 1954 and 1956, now a botanist and microbiologist living in New Jersey.