Early Years
Rollo Howard Beck was born in Los Gatos, California, and grew up in Berryessa working on apricot and prune orchards. He completed only 8th grade education, but took an early interest in natural history, trapping gophers after school on neighborhood farms. One of his neighbors, Frank H. Holmes, was a good friend of the ornithologist Theodore Sherman Palmer. Palmer also introduced Beck to Charles Augustus Keeler, who studied birdlife of the San Francisco Bay area, and Beck learned about upland birds hunting quail with Holmes. Beck’s interest and knowledge of birds grew, and he soon learned how to make ornithological specimens and mount birds for museum collections. He joined the American Ornithologists' Union in 1894, and was among the first members of the newly formed Cooper Ornithological Society which formed in San Jose, California. He participated in early ornithological expeditions to the Sierra Nevada Mountains, Yosemite, and Lake Tahoe with Holmes and Wilfred Hudson Osgood, and collected and helped describe the first eggs and nests of the Western Evening Grosbeak and Hermit Warbler.
Read more about this topic: Rollo Beck
Famous quotes related to early years:
“I believe that if we are to survive as a planet, we must teach this next generation to handle their own conflicts assertively and nonviolently. If in their early years our children learn to listen to all sides of the story, use their heads and then their mouths, and come up with a plan and share, then, when they become our leaders, and some of them will, they will have the tools to handle global problems and conflict.”
—Barbara Coloroso (20th century)